Religious education in the family

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http: //books .google .com/I

J b, Google

^

J b, Google

J b, Google

The University of Chicago Publications
IN Religious Education

■DtTEDBY

ERNIST D. BURTON SHAILER MATHEWS

THEODORE G. SOARES

CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES

UigniaOb, Google

b, Google

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
IN THE FAMILY

J b, Google

TBI UUBBUIOttlM, (7CBTIS* * WILCB OOHFUrf

1
UigniaOb, Google

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
IN THE FAMILY

Henky F. 9°'^

THE UNIVEIlSITy OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

J b, Google

Published April 1915

Second ImpnauHi Septanber 1915

Third Impresiioo Much Igi6

Fourth Im[vt>uoa JuiM igi;

J b, Google

PREFACE

When the Constructive Studies were first pro-
jected the church was aJmost without teztboc^
in religious education. Tlie Sunday school had
always concerned itself with a discussion of the
ptassages of the Bible, but had learned little about
proper methods of ascertaining the dgnificance
of that literature. The most pressing need, there-
fore, at the beginning of the new movement in
religious education was the preparation of text-
books that should direct students to the correct
. method of the examination of the biblical material
and consideration ol its meaning, in order that
they might construct for themselves the life, the
experience, the teaching therein contained. These
Constructive Studies in the Bible have now
attained a practically complete curriculum, and
the series will continue to be enlarged and
improved.

But a thorough system of rel^ous education
will comprise in addition to a biblical curriculum
many other studies. And these also ought to be
constructive. That is to say, students in religion
and morals should be observers, investigators,
using textbooks as guides that may help them to
build up right attitudes, appreciations, under-
standings.

J b, Google

vUi FSETACX

Henderson's Social Duties from tke ChrisUan
Point of View, and Johnson's Problems of Boyhood
are the beginmng of a complete series of textbooks
that will deal with the moral and religious problems
of life, comprising the ethical group of the Ohi-
structive Studies.

Coitral in these vital problems and central in
religious education is the life of the family. The
church has always realized its duty to ediort
parents to bring up their children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord, but very little has
eva- been done to enable parents to study syste-
matically and sdentifically the problem of religious
education in the family. Today parents' classes
are bang formed in many churches; Christian
Associations, wcnnen's dubs, and institutes are
studying the subject; individual parents are
becoming more and more interested in the rational
performance of their h^ duties. And there b
a general dedre for guidance. As the full bibli-
ography at the end of this volume and the references
in connection with each chapter indicate, there is
available a very large literature dealing with the
various elements of the problem. But a guide-
book to organize all this material and to stimulate
independent thought and endeavor is desirable.

To afford this guidance the present volume has
been prepared. It is equally adapted for the
thoughtful study of the father and mother irtu> ace

J b, Google

PSETACX iZ

sediog be^ in the moral aod religious devekq>-
mmt of their own family, and for cUsms in churches,
institutes, and neighborhoods, iriiere the imp(»tant
problems of the family are to be studied and dis-
cussed. It would be well to b^in the use of the
book by reading the suggestions for class woik at
the end of the volume.

With a ccmfideat hope that religion in the
family is not to be a wistful memory of the past but
a most vital force in the making of the better day
that is coming, this volume is c^ered as a oxitri-
butim and a summons.

Tek Editobs

New Year*! Dsy, 191]

J b, Google

J b, Google

CONTENTS

I. An Intebpxeuhoh ox the Pawly . . i

IL The Presbmt Status or Fauly Lm . lo

m. The Peshanzht Elehemts in Fauly Lm aj

I IV. Tex RsuGiODa Place oe ihe FAiOLy . . 37

v. The Meaning or Religious Education

IN THE Fauly 46

, VI. The Chiizi's Religious Ideas .... 60

Vn. Directed AcnviTY 75

Vm. Tee Home as a School 87

IX. The Chiid's Ideal Lite loi

X. Siosies AND Reading no

XI. The Use or the Bible in the Houe . 119

XH. Fauly Woeship ia6

xm. Sunday in the Houe 145

XIV. The Ministky or the Table .... 164

XV. The Boy and Giel in the Family . . 173

XVI. The Needs or Youth 183

XVQ. The Fauly and the Chusch .... 198

XVm. Chiidxen AND THE School an

XDL Deaung witB Moral CsiSES . . . . aiS

JbyGOOl^lC ,

XX. Dbaiimo with McttAL Cusn (CoaMMM^ 131

XXL Dkaumo with M«al Cubs iCmUmmtti 140

XXn. DzAiim} mtH Houi. Oms (CmduM) 149
/ XXm. Tbz PzuoHAl Faciou dt Rsuoioqs

XXIV. LOOKIHO TO TEB FUTUU .

SoooEmaiis iok Cum Wokk . .
A Book Lax

J b, Google

CHAPTER I

AN INTERPRETATION OP THE FAMILY

§ I. TAKING THE HOICE IN fiELIOIOITS TESHS

The ills of the modem home are symqitomatic.
Pivorce, childless families, irreverent children,
and the decadence of the old type of separate home
life are dgns of fo^ttea ideals, lost motives, and
insufficient purposes. Where the home is mly an
(^portimity for self-indulgence, it easily becomes
a cheap boarding-house, a sleepii^-shelf, an
implemoit for social advant^e. While it is true
that general eomomic developments have effected
marked changes in domestic economy, the happi-
ness and efficien<7 of the family do not depend
wholly on the parior, the kitchen, or the clothes
closet. Rather, everything depends on whether
the home and family are considered in worthy and
adequate terms.

Homes are wrecked because families refuse to
take home-living in rehgious terms, in sodal terms
of sacrifice and service. In such homes, organized
and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather
than to meet social respondbilities, these dedres be-
come raids rather than agendes and opportunities.

They who marry for lust are divorced for
further lust. Selfishness, even in its form of

db, Google

3 KfUGious *E:6uCA'fioM in the Family

self-pieservation, is an unstable foundation for a
home. It costs too much to maintain a home if you
measure it by the personal advantages of parents.
What hope is there for useful and happy family
life if the newly wedded youth have both been
educated in selfishness, habituated to frivolous
pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in tenns
of garish display? Yet what definite program
for any other training does society provide ? Do
the schools and colleges, Sunday schools and
churches teach youth a better way? How else
shall they be trained to take the home and family
in terms that will make for happiness and useful-
ness? It is high time to take seriously the task
of educating people to religious efficiency in the
home.

§ 2. THE KELIGIOnS UOTIVE

The family needs a religious motive. More
potent for happiness than courses in domestic
economy will be training in sufficient domestic
motives. It will take much more than modem
conveniences, bigger apartments, or even better
kitchens to make the new home. Essentially the
problem is not one of mechanics but of persons.
What we call the home problem is more truly
a family problem. It centers in persons; the
solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated
to live as more than dust, for more than dirt, for
personaUty rather than for possessions. We need

.b, Google

An Intesfketahon of the Faioly 3

young people who establish homes, not simply
because they feel miserable when separated, nor
because one needs a place in which to board and
the other needs a boarder, but because the largest
duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with
other lives and to give themselves in high love
to making those other lives of the greatest pos^ble
worth to the world.

llie family must come to a recognition of
social obligations. We all hope for the coming
ideal day. Everywhere men and women are
answering to higher ideals of life. But the new
day waits for a new race. Modem emphasis on
the child is a part of present reaction from mate-
rialism. New social ideals are personal. We seek
a better world for the sake of a higher race. The
emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than -
a sentimental basis. The family is our great
chance to determine childhood and so to make the
future. The child of today is basic to the social
welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay
to tomorrow all that we owe to yesterday. The
family as the child's life-school is thus central to
every social prc^ram and problem.

§3. WIDEK CHUD-WELFARE

This age knows that man does not live by bread
alone. Interest in child-welfare is for the sake
of the child himself, not for the sake of his clothes

J b, Google

4 Rzuoious Education in the Family

or his physical condition. Concern about soap
and sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of
life grows because these all go to make up the soil
in which the person giows. There is danger that
our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the
tools instead of the man; that we may become
Kimeshed. in the mechanism of well-being and lose
sight of the being who should be well. To fail at
the point of character is to fail all along the line.
And we faU altogether, no matter how many
bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds,
medical in^>ections, and inoculations, unless that
child be in himself strong and high-minded, loving
truth, bating a lie, and habituated to live in good-
will with his fellows and with high ideals for the
universe. Modem interest in the material factors
of life is on accotmt of thdr potency in making
real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of
the physical as the very soil in which life grows.
But the fruits are more than the soil, and a home
exists for higher purposes than physical conven-
iences; these are but its tools to its great end.
Somehow for purposes of social well-being we must
raise our t^''"i''"E of the family to the n-'m of the
development of efficient, rightly minded character.
The family must be seen as making spiritual

§ 4. THE COST OF A FAULV

Taking the home in religious terms will mean,
then, conceiving it as an institution with a religious

UigniaObyGOOglc

An Intekpsetation or the Family 5

purpose, namely, that of giving to the world
children who are adequately trained and suffi-
d^tly motived to live the social life of good-will,
trhe family exists to give society devel<^>ed/
efficient children. It fails if it does not havf
fa religious, a spiritual product. It cannot succeed
except by the willing self-devotion of adult lives
to this spiritual, personal purpose.

A family is the primary social oi|;anization for
the elementary purpose of breeding the species,
nurturing and training the young. This is its
physiological basis. But its duties cannot be dis-
charged on the physiological plane alone. This
elementary physiological function is lifted to
a spiritual level by the aim of character and the
motive of love. Families cannot be measured by
their size; they must be measured by the character
of their products. If quality counts anywhere it
counts here, though it is well to remember that it
takes s<ane reasonable quantity to make right
quality in each.

The family needs a religious motive. It
demands sacrifice. To follow lower impulses is
to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness
and sorrow wherever m^ and women court for
lust, marty for social striding, and maintain an
establishment only as a part of the game of social
competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease,
idle luxuty, pride, and greed is to reap the whirl-
wind. Moreover, it is to miss the great chance

J b, Google

6 Religious Education m the Family

of life, the chance to find that short cut to happi-
ness which men call pain and suffering.

A family is humanity's great opportunity to
walk the way of the cross. Mothers know that;
some fathers know it; some children grow up to
leam it. In homes where this is true, where all
other aims are subordinated to tMs one of making
the h(mie coimt for high character, to training
lives into right social adjustment and service, the
primary emphasis is not on times and seasons for
religion; religion is the life of that home, and in
all its common living every child learns the way of
the great Life of all. In vain do we torture chil-
dren with adult religious penances, long prayers,
and homilies, thinking thereby to give them reli- '
gious training. The good man comes out of the
good home, the home that is good in character,
aim, and organization, not sporadically but per-
manently, the home where the religious spirit, the
spirit of idealism, and the sense of the infinite and
divine are diffused rather than injected. The
inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their
brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates
or mob-leaders, grafters or gutter thieves, often
learned to take life in terms of graft by the attitude
and atmosphere of their homes.'

' The CorntT-Skme of Education, by Edward LyttletoD,
headrciflstcr of Eton, is a striking argument on the deteimmative
influence of parental habits and attitudes of mind.

J b, Google

An Intespketation of the Family 7

§ $. motives for a study of the family

The modem family is worthy of our careful
study. It demands painstaking attention, both
because of its immediate importance to human
happiness and because of its potentiality for the
future of society. The kind of home and the char-
acter of family life which will best serve the world
and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined
by sentiment or supposition. We are under the
highest and sternest obligation to discover the
laws of the family, those social laws which are
determined by its nature and purpose, to find
right stMidaids for family life, to discriminate
between the things that are permanent and those
that are passing, between those we must conserve
and those we must discard, to be prepared to fit
children for the finer and higher type of family
life that must come in the future.

Methods of securing family efficiency will not
be discovered by accident. If it is worth while
to study the minor details, such as baking cakes
and sweeping floors, surely it is even more impor-
tant to study the larger problems of organization
and discipline. There is a science of home-
direction and an art of family living; both must
be learned with patient study.

It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor,'
the joy of love, and high ideals dwell ever. It costs
time, pleasures, and so-called social advantages, as

J b, Google

8 Religious EmrcATioN m the Family

well as money and labor. It must cost thought,
study, and investigation. It demands and deserves
sacrifice; it is too sacred to be cheap. The build-
ing of a home is a work that endures to eternity,
and that kind of work never was done with ease
or without pain and loss and the investment of
much time. Patient study of the problems of the
family is a part of the price which all may pay.

No nobler social work, no deeper rdigious work,
no higher educational woA. is done anywhere than
that of the men and women, high or humble, who
set themselves to the fitting of their childr^ for
life's business, equipping them with principles and
habits upon which they may fall back in trying
hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest,
holiest, happiest place on earth.

Heaven only knows the price that must be pwd
for that; heaven only knows the worth of that
work. But if we are wise we shall each take up
our work for our world where it lies nearest to us,
in co-operation with parents, in service and sacri-
fice as parents or kin, our work in the ^op where
manhood is in the making, where it is being made
fit to dwell long in the land, in the family at home.

I. R£FEK£NC£S FOR Sxtmy

Edward Lyttleton, The Comer-Stone oj Education, chaps.

i, vii Putnam, |i. 50.
A. Gaudier, "Religious Education in the Home," EeUgious

Education, June, 1914, pp. 1133-43.

J b, Google

An Intespketation of the Faioly 9

n. FUXTHES ReADINC

Tke Family a Religious Agency
C. F. and C. B. Thwing, The Family. Lothiop, Lee &

Sbepard, I1.60.
J. D. Folsom, Rdigious Education in ike Some. Eaton &

Mains, $0. 75.
G. A. Coe, EdtuoHon in Rdigion and Morals. Revell, $1 . 3S.

The Place of the Family

A. J. Todd, The Family as an EdttcaHonal Agency. Put-
nam, $3. 00.

W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and the Family. Hodder &
Stough ton, $3.50.

J. B. Robins, The Family a Necessity. Revell, f i . 35.

m. Topics ro» DiscnssioH
I. Describe the changes within lecent times in the

conditions of the home, its work, housing, and supplies.

How far have these chaises affected the community of the

family^ the continuity of its personal relationships, and its

religious service ?

3. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters ?

Admitting that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in

mmienms Instances, what other causes enter into the high

number of divorces ?

3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the
maintenance of a family.

4. What are the motives which would make people
willing to bear the high cost of founding and conducting a
home?

5. What points of emphasis does this study surest in
the matter of the education of public c^inion ?

6. State your distinction between the family and the
home; which is the more important and why P

J b, Google

CHAPTER n

THK PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE

§ I. CONTRASTED TYPES

In a beautiful village, in one of the farther
western states, two men were discussing the pos-
sible future of the home and of family life. Sitting
in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the
leafy shades, watching the lights of a score of
homes, each surrounded by lawn and shade trees,
each with its group on the front porch, where vines
trailed and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum
of conversation and the strains of music in one
home and another, it seemed, to at least one of
these men, that this type of hving could hardly
pass away. The separate home, each family a
complete social integer, each with its own circle
of activities and interests, its own group, and its
own table and fireside, seemed too fine and beauti-
ful, too fair and helpful, to perish imder economic
pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home
furnished a setting for life and a soil for character
development far higher and more efficient than
could be afforded by any other domestic arrange-
ment — that it approached the ideal.

But two wedcs later two men sat in an upper
room, in the second largest city in America, dis-

jb, Google

PxESENT Status of Fauily Lite ti

cussing agun the future of the family. Instead
of the quiet music of the village, the clang of street
cars filled the ears, trains rushed by, children
shouted from the paved highway, families were
seated by open windows in crowded apartments,
seeking cool air; the total impression was that of
being placed in a pigeonhole in a huge, heated,
filing-ose, where each separate space was occupied
by a family. One felt the pressure of heated,
crowded kitchens, suffocating little dining-rooms;
one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds
at u^ht, gasping their very lives away, and that
the young folks were wandering off to amusement
parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an
entirely different picture. How long could family
life persist under these conditions where privacy
was almost gcme and comfort almost unknown ?

In the village separate home integers appear
ideal; in the city they are possible only to the few.
The many, at present, find them a crushing burden.
Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too
high a price. It costs too much to maintain
sq)arate kitchens and dining-rooms under city
ccuiditions.

§ 2. COMUUNAL TENDENCIES

Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, dis-
comfort. The woman lives all day in stifling
rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking life

J b, Google

12 Reuoiods Education in the Fawly

of nei^bors pouring itself tlirough walls and
windows. The men come from crowded shops
and the children from crowded schoolrooms to
crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch
a meal, or to sleep. How can there be real family
life ? What joy can there be or what ideals created
in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder
that such homes are sleeping-places only, that
there is no sense of family intercourse and unity.
Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded
family life.

Many hold that we are ready for a movement
into community living, that just as the social life
of the separate house porches in the villages has
become commmiized into the amusemait parks
in the cities, so all the activities of the family
will move iii the same direction. How long
could the family as a unit continue under th«se
conditions?

The village life will persist for a long time; it
may be that, when we apply scientific methods
to the transportation of human beings in the same
measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we
can develop large belts of real village life all around
oiu: industrial centers. But more and more the
villf^e tends to become like the city; in other
words, highly organized commimal life is the
dominant trend today. Just as business tends
to do on a large scale all that can be more economi-

jb, Google

Present Siatus of Family Lnre 13

cally done in larger units, so does the home. We
must look for the increasing prevalence of the city
type of life for men and women and for families.

§ 3. THE ECONOUICAL DEVELOPHENT

It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, '
just what changes are involved in the tendency
toward communal living. At the beginning of
the industrial revolution which ushered ia the
factory period, each family was a fairly complete
unit in itself. The village was little more than a
nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types
of units, such as workers in wood, in wearing
apparel, and in tools. The home furnished nearly
all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained
its own children, and knew scarcely any community
aideavor or any syndication of effort except in the
church.

The industrial revolution took labor largely
out of the home into the factory. Except for
farm life, the husband became an outside worker
and the older boys followed him to the distant
shop or factory. Earning a living ceased to be a
fandly act and became a social act in a larger
sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part
of the family educational process. Boys who,
from childhood up, had gradually learned their
father's trade in the shop or workroom, which
was part of the house, where they played as

J b, Google

14 Reugiotts Education in the Family

children in the shavings, or watched the glowing
sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of
a father's discipline and guidance as their hands
acquired facility for thor tasks. The home lost
the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of
each day, more than two-thirds of the waking
period, and thus it lost a large share of disciplinary
guidance. In the rise of the factory system, to a
large extmt the family lost the father.

When the workshop left the home its most
effidoit school was taken from it. The lessons
may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical,
but the method approximated to the ideals which
modem pedagogy seeks to realize. Among the
shavings children learned by doing; schooling was
perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it
had the incalculable value of infonnality and
reality. The father gone and the mother still
fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost
that practical training for life which home industry
had afforded. On the one hand, the young became
the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey
of the voracious factory system.

This condition gave rise to the public-school
system. It appealed to Robert Raikes and others.
The school appeared and took over the child. Of
course schools had existed, here and there, long
before this, but now they had an enlarged responsi-
bility; they must act almost in the place of the

JbyGOOl^lC

pEESEUT Statos of Family Lite 15

parents for the^fonnal training of children. Hav-
mg lost the father and older males for the greater
portion of the day, the home now loses the children
of from seven to the '"teen" years for five or six
hours of the day. The mother is left at home with
the babies. The family, once living mider one
roof, now is found scattered; it has reached out
into factory and school. Its hours of unified life
have been markedly reduced.

But the factory ^tem soon had a reflex in-
fluence on the h<nne. That which was made in
the factory came back into the hcmie, not only in
the form of the ardcles formerly made by the mai,
but in those made by the women. Clothes,
caudles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat — all
formerly home products for the use of the family
producing them — ^now were prepared in larger
quantities, by mechanical processes, and were
brought back into the home. Woman's labor was
lightened; the older girls were liberated from the
loom and they began to seek occupation, education,
and diversion according to their opportunities
in life.

That last step made it possible for people to
think of the communization of home industry, to
think of eating food cooked in other ovens than
their own, to think of one oven large enough for a
whole village. Many interesting experiments in
co-operative living immediately sprang up. But

J b, Google

i6 Reugiods Education in the Family

the next step came slowly and, even now, is only
fiimly established in the cities, in the actual aban-
donment of the family kitchoi for the community
kitchen in the fonn of the restaurant. In such
families we have unity only in the hours of sleep
and recreation.

Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen
there has proceeded the abandonment of the parlor
in the homes of the middle classes. To lose the
old, mournful front room may be no subject for
tears, but the loss of the evening family group,
about the fireside or the reading-lamp, is a real
and sad loss. The conmierce in amusements has
offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The
theater and its lesser satellites, amusements, enter-
tainments, lectures, the lyceum, and recreation-
by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken the
place of united family recreation. Of course this
has been a natural development of the older village
play-life and has been by no means an unmixed ill.

Now, behold, what has become of the old-time
home life! The family that spent nearly twenty-
four hours together now spends a scarce seven or
eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little
wonder that the next step is taken — the abandon-
ment of this remainder, the sleep period, under a
domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel!

Along with the tendency toward communal
working and eating we see the tendency to com-

jb, Google

Pkesent Status ot Fauly Life 17

munal living by the development of the apartment
building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and
since in a practical age, few of us can afford to
pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen families
under one roof'treeP True we sacrifice lawns,
gardens, natural places for children to play; we
lose birds and flowers and the charm of evening
hours on porches, or gall^es, but think of what
we gain in bricks and mtntar, in labor saved from
splitting wood and shoveling coal, in janitor
service! The tran^Uon is now osmplete; the
home is simply that item in the economic macbioery
which will best fumi^ us storage for our sleeping
bodies and our clothes!

We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes
in family life, and no family can count on escaping
the influence of the ch&nge. The one single out-
standing and most potent change, so far as the
character of family life is concerned, is, in the
United States, the rapid polarization of population
in the dties. The United States Census Bureau
counts all residents in cities of over 8,ocx> popula-
tion as "urban." In 1800 the "urban" popula-
tion was 4 per cent of the total population; in
iSjoitwas 13.5 per cent; in 1870, 30.9 per cent;
in 1890, 29.3 per cent; in 1900, 33.1 per cent;
in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.' Here

■Figuiei taken fiam C. W. Votaw, Ffoprtsi of Moral and
Seligiaiu EduMfum in the American Home, 1911.

.b, Google

i8 R£iJGioirs Edocatioh m the Family

is a tread so clearly marked that we cannot deny
its reality, while its significance is familiar to
everyone today.

However, the village type remains; there are
still many homes where, a measure of family miity
persists, where at least in one meal daily and, for
pmposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the,
evening hours of recreation, there is a consciousness
of home life. Yet the most remote village feels
the pressure of change. The few homes conform-
ing to the older ideals are recognized as exceptional.
The dty draws the village and rural family to
itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals
spreads througji the villages and affects the forms
of living there. Youths become dty dwellers and
do not cease to scoff at the village unless later
years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher
values. The standard of domestic organization
is established by the dty; that type of Hving is
the ideal toward which nearly all are striving.

The important question for all persons is whether
the changes now taking place in family life are
good or ill. It is impossible to say whether the
whole trend is for the better; the many elements
are too diverse and often apparently conflicting.
Faith in the orderly development of sodety gives
groimd for belief that these changes ultimately
work for a higher type of family life. The dty
may be regarded as only a transition stage in sodal

J b, Google

Present Status of Fauuy Life 19

evolution — the compacting of masses of persona
together that out of the new fusing and velding
may arise new methods of sodai hving. The
la^er ntunhers point to more h^hly deve1(^>ed
forms of sodal organization. When these la^er
units disa)ver their greater purposes, above factory
and mill and store, and realize them in personal
values, the city life will be a more highly developed
mechanism for the higher life of man. The home
life wiU develop along with that dty life.

§ 4. FUSFOSEFUI. obganizahon
At present the home is suffering, just as the dty
is suffering, from a lack of that purposeful organiza-
tion which will order the parts aright and subject
the processes to the most important and ultimate
purposes. The dty is simply an aggregation of
' persons, scarcely having any consdous organiza-
tion, thrown together for purposes of industry.
It will before very long organize itself for purposes
of personal welfare and education. The family
is usually a group bound in ties of struggle for
shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consdousness
as it possesses is that of being helplessly at the
mercy of conflicting economic forces. The adjust-
ment of those forces, their subjection to man's
higher interests, must come in the future and will
help the family to freedom to discover its true
purpose.

J b, Google

30 Reugious Edvcahon in the Family

It is easy to insist on the lespon^ility of parents
for the character-training of their children, but it
is difficult to see how that responsibility can be
property discharged under industrial conditions
that take both father and mother out of the b<Hne
the whole day and leave them too weary to stay
awake in the evening, too poor to furnish decent
conditions of living, and too apathetic under the
dull monotony of labor to care for life's finer inter-
ests. TTie welfare of the family is tied up with the
welfare of the race; if progress can be secured in
one part progress in the whole ensues.

There are those who raise the question whether
family life is a permanent form of social organiza-
tion for which we may wisely contend, or is but a
phase from which the race is now emerging. Some
see signs that the ties of marriaffl will be but
temporary, that children will be bom, not into
families but into the life of the state, bearing only
their mothers' names and knowing no brothers
and ^ters save in the brotherhood of the state.
Whether the permanent elements in family life
furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preserva-
tion is a subject for careful consideration.

§ 5. THE HOME AM) THE FAMILV

The family is more important than the home,
just as the man is more than his clothing. The
form of the home changes; the life of the family

J b, Google

Present Status of Family Life ai

continues tmchanged in its essential characteristics.
The iamHy causes the home to be. Professor
Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the
basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause
of the family.' Small groups for protection and
spdal Uving would precede formal arrangements
of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it
was "for the benefit of the young that male and
female continued to live together."* The impor-
tance of this consideration for us lies in the thought
of the overshadowing importance of this social
group which we now call the family. The family
is the primary cell of society, the first unit in social
organization. Our thought must balance itself
between the importance of this sodal group, to be
preserved in its integrity, and the value of the home,
with its varied forms of activity and ministry, as a
means of preserving and devetopii^ this group, the
family.

One hears today many pessimistic utterances
regarding the modem home. Some even tell us
that it is doomed to become extinct. Without
doubt great economic changes m society are pro-
ducing profound changes in the organizatlou and
character of the home. But the home has always
been subject to such changes; the factor which

■ A. J. Todd, Frimitive Family and Education, p. 21. Amost
valuAble and safgfxdve book.
• Cited by Todd, p. ai.

J b, Google

33 RxuGious Education in the Familt

we need to watch with greater care is the family;
the former is but the shell of the latter.

The character of each home will depend largely
OD the economic condition of those who dwell in
it The homes of every age will reflect the social
conditions of that age. The picture in historical
romances of the home of the mediaeval period,
where the factory, or shop, joined the dining-room,
where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home,
where (mt might be compelled to furnish and
provision his bnne literally as.his castle for defense,
presets a marked difference to the home of this
century tending to syndicate all its labors with all
the other homes of the community. Since the
h(mie is simply the organization and mechanism of
the family life, it is most susceptible to material and
social changes. It varies as do the fashions of men.

Much that we assume to be detrimental to the
life of the home is simply due to the fact that in
the evolution of society the family, as it were,
puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new f onns of
organization to meet the changing external condi'
tions.

§ 6. THE EOiCE changing; the family abidino
The home is of importance only as a tool, a
means to the final ends of the family life; the
test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains
traditional fonns but whether it best serves the

J b, Google

Present Statcts of Famixy Life 33

hi^est aims of faimly life. We may abandon all
the older customs; our regret for them, as we look
back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any
greater than the regrets of our parents or grand-
parents looking back on the spinning-wheel and
the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their
childhood. Surely no one contends that family
life has deteriorated, that human character is one
whit the poorer, because we have discarded the
family spinning-wheeL Throu^ the changes of
a developing civilization, as man has moved from
the time when each one built his own house,
worked with his own tools to make all his supplies,
to these days of specialized service in community
living, the home has changed with each step of
industrial progress, but the family has remained
practically unchanged.

The family stands a practically unchanging
factor of personal qualities at the center of our
civilization; the family rather than the home deter-
mines the character of the coming days. In its
social relationships are rooted the things that are
best in all our hves. In its social training he the
solutions of more problems in social adjustment
and development than we are willing to admit.
The family is tbe soil of sodety, central to all its
problems and possibihties.

Before church or school the family stands potent
for character. We are what we are, not by the

J b, Google

34 Reugiocs Education in ihb Faioly

ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week or
ODce a month in a church, nor by the instructions
given in the classroom; we are what parents, kin,
and all the circumstances that have touched us
daily and hourly for years have determined we
should be.

The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about
the scenes of family life. The rose-embowered
cottage of the poet is not the only spot that claims
affectionate gratitude; many look back to a dty
house wedged into its monotonous row. But,
wherever it might be, if it sheltered love and held
a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice
burned, earth has no fairer or more sacred
spot. The people rather than the place made it
potent.

Stronger even than the memories that remain
are the marks of habits, tendencies, tastes, and
dispositions there acquired. Many a man who
has left no fortune worth recording to his sons has
left them scmiething better, the aptitude for thii^
good and honorable, the memory of a good name,
and the heritage of a Ufe that was worthy of honor.
The personal life has been always the enduring
thing. Our concern for the future should be not
whether we can pass on intact the forms of home
organization, but whether we can give to the next
day the force of ideal family life. Perhaps like
Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from the

J b, Google

PsESENT Status of Faiuly Life 25

much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to
set our minds on the better part, the personal
values in the association of lives in the family.

I. Retkkences vox Study
W. F. Lofthouae, Elkics and the Family, chaps, ii, xi, zii.

Hodder & Stougbton, %2. 50.
Charles R. Hendenon, Sociai Duties from the Christian

Point of View, duf». ii, iii. The University of

Chicago Press, (1.35.
C. W. Votaw, Fropess of Moral and Reliiious BdncaHon in

the American Home. Religious Education Associa-

tixm, to. 15.

n. FUETEEK RZADINO

Jacob A. Riis, Peril and Preservation of the Home, Jacobs,

Philadelphia, Pa., %i . do.
Charies R. Henderson, Social Elements. Scribner, ti.50.
Charles F. Thwing, The Recovery of the Home. American

Baptist Publication Society, So. 15.

in. Topics iok Discussion
I. Tlie tendency toward community life illustrated in
the sdtools, amusement parks, and hotel life. Remember-
ing the ultimate purpose of the famify, how far is communal
life desirable ?

3. Does the apartment or tenement building fumish
a, suitable condition for the higher purposes of the
famify?

3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the
benefits lost by present factory consolidation of industry ?

4. What can take the place of the old household arts and
of those which are now passing ?

J b, Google

26 Religious Education in the Family

5. What stqn should be taken to secure to the famQy a
larger measure of the time in trams of occupation of the
parents?

6. What are the iii4>oitaDt thmgs to contend for in this
institution ? Why should we expect change in the form of
the home and what are the features which should not be

d?

J b, Google

CHAPTER m

THE FEKUANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE
S I. THE DOMINANT UOTIVE

The chief end of sodety is to improve the race,
to develop the higher and steadily improving type
of human beings. We can test the life of the
family and determine the values of its elements
by asking whether and in what degree they min-
ister to this and, the growth of better persons.
This is more than a theoretical aim or one con-
ceived in a search for ideals. It is written plain
in our passions and strongest inclinations. That
which parents supremely desire for their children
is that they may become strong in body, capable
and alert in mind, and animated by worthy prin-
ciples and ideals. The parent desires a good man,
fit to take his place, do his work, make his con-
tribution to the social well-being, able to live to
the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its
reaches of meaning and heights of vision and
beauty. In true parenthood all hopes of success,
of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues
to this end, as means of making the finer character,
of growing the ideal person. If we were com-
pelled to choose for our childr^ we should elect
poverty, pain, disgrace, toU, and suffering if we

J b, Google

38 Reluhous Education in the Family

knew this was the only highway to full manhood
and womanhood, to completeness of character.
Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that
they must endure hardness, bear the yoke in their
youth, and leam that

Love and joy are torches lit

At altar fires of sacrifice.

With this dominating purpose clearly in mind
we are prq)ared to ask, What are the elements of
family life which among the changes of today we
need most carefully to preserve in order to main-
tain efficiency in character devel<^ment? la
days when the outer shell of domestic arrange-
ments changes, when readjustments are being made
in the organization of the family, what is there too
precious to lose, so worthy and essential that we
waste no time when seeking to maintain it ?

§ a. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED — SOCIAl
QtJAUTIES

The first great element to be preserved in all
family life is that of the power of the small group
for purposes of character development. The
infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In
order to grow into a man fitted for the wider world
of social living, he must leam to live in a world
within his comprehension. A child's life moves
through the widening circles of mother-care,
family group, neighborhood, school, city, state,

J b, Google

Fesuanent Eleubnts in Family Life 39

and nation into world-living. He must take the
first steps befote he is able to take the next ones.
He must leam to live with the few as preparation
for living with the many. In earliest infancy he
takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art
of living with other folks as be relates himself to
parents and to brothers and sisters.

Secondly, the family life affords the best ^ency
for social training. The family is the ideal democ-
racy into which the child-life is bom. Here habits
are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is
interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, be-
cause it is a social organization existing for the
sake of persons. The family comes nearer to
fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order
than does any other institution. It is founded to
bring lives into this world; it is maintained for the
sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and
standards are determined, ideally, by the needs
of persons. It is an ideal democracy, secondly,
because its guiding principle is that the greater
lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the
parent for the little child, the older members for
the younger, in an attempt to extend to the very
least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly,
ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to
each member a share in its own affairs and develops
the power to bear resptmsibilities and to carry
each his own load in Hfe. Thus the family group

J b, Google

30 Reugiods Education in ihe Fahilt

is the best possible traimng for the life and work
of the larger group, the state, and for world-living."
The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as a
democracy, depends on the contintiance of this
institution with its peculiar power to train Me
in infancy and childhood for the life of manhood
in the state. Such training can be given only in
the smaller group that is governed by the motives
peculiar to home and family life. The power
to impress these principles depaids on the size of
the group. The small social organization, the
family drcle of from three members to ev^i a
dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great,
efficient school, training youth to live in social
terms.

Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first.
Our age especially needs men and women who
think in terms of spiritual values, who rise above
the measures of [x>unds and dollars and weigh life
by personal qualities and worth. Tha.t is precisely
what the home does. It prizes most highly the
helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures
every member by his personal character, his
affecrional worth. Its riches do not depend on
that which money can buy, but on the personal
qualities of love,goodness, kindness; on memories,
associations, affection. The true home gives to

'See "Democracy in the Home," Ameriea» Jovmal o/
Sociology, January, igta.

J b, Google

Pebuanent Eleuents m Faioxy Life 31

every child-life the power to choose the things of
the world on the basis of their worth in person-
ality. Only the mistaken judgments of later
years, the short-minded vrfsdom of the world,
make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring
the home's spiritual benefits to the material re-
wards of the world of business. No life can be
furnished for the strain of our modem nuterialinn
that lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the
true family.

§3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED — THE
\ UORAL LIFE

Fourthly, the power of family hving to devdop
love as loyalty is to be noted. In this small group
is laid the foundation of the moral life. "The
family is the primer in the moral education of the
race.'" Here the new-bom life begins to relate
itself to other lives. Here it b^ins life in an
atmosphere saturated by love, the central prin-
ciple of ail virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in
persons and devotion to them, "the greatest of
these," because it is the parent of all virtue.
The moral life, that life which is adjusted,
capable, and adequately motived for helpful, effi-
cient, enriching living with all other lives, is not
a matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions.

' Fianda G. Peabody, Tkt Atprtaek to tkt Sodat Question,
p. 04.

J b, Google

33 Religious Education in tbe Fauly

Neither is it a matter of separate habits as to
this or the other kind of behavior, though this
comes nearer to it than do rules and prescrip-
tions. The character-life which parents desire
for their children is not that which will do the
right thing when it has discovered that right thing
in some book of rules, nor that life which will
do the tight thing because society points that way,
nor even that life which automatically does the
right thing, but it is the life which, constantly
moved by some high inner compulsion, some imper-
ative of vidon and ideal, moves to the highest
possible plane of action in every situation. This
is the life of loyalty. It begins with loyalty to
persons, with that devotion which begins witl)
affection. In no other place is this so well devel-
oped as m the relations of the family. This is the
child's first and most potential school. Here the
lessons are wholly unconsdous; here they are
strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It
is a joy to be loyal to those we love. Indeed, who
can tell which comes first, the joy, the loyalty, or
the love ?

The power of this small social group of the
family to develop the fundamental principle of
loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a position of
great importance to the affections in the family.
We do well to contend for the maintenance of con-
ditions of family living which will strengthen the

J b, Google

Pekmanent Elements in Family Lite 33

ties of affection. If cbOdren could be thrust into
the care of the state, in laige groups, separated
from parental care and oversight, it is difficult to
see what emotional stimulus toward affection
would remain. The personal devotion to intimate
adults would in only the smallest degree compensate
for the loss of father and mother. We know
nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree
in orphan asylums, still less in institutions under
the cold and impersonal care of the state. It has
been urged that the affections of parents stand
in the way of a sdentiffc regimen and education
for small diildren. The a)ld, passionless, auto-
matic parent, then, woidd be the ideal — a Mr.
Dombey or a Mr, Feverel. Parents make many
mistakes, but these mistakes are not due to too
much affection, but to untrained minds and unedu-
cated affections. It were better to save the values
of their affections and on them to build a wise
discipline for childhood by providing adequate
training of parents for their duties.

Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of
family Uife, even its apparentiy unnecessary sacri-
fice and pain, that we do well to seek to keep.
Character grows in paying the high price of main-
taining a family. It is the most expensive form
of living for adults. Marriages are now delayed
because of the fear of the actual monetary cost;
but far more serious is the cost in care, in nerves,

J b, Google'

34 RxilGIOtTS EDXK^ATtON IN THE FaULY

in patience, in all the great dements of self-denial.
No child ever knows what he has cost until he has
children of his own. But this discipline of self-
denial is that which saves us from selfishness. It
is necessary to have some personal objects for
which to give our lives if they axe to be saved
from centrifugation, from death through ingrowing
affection. True, many bachelors and spinsters
have learned the way of self-denying, fellow-serving
love. But how can a true parent escf^^e that
lesson ? Nor does it stop with parents ; as children
grow up together they, too, must learn mutual
forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of
service. One sees selfishness in the little child
gradually fading in the practice of family service,
helpfulness, consideration for others. The single
child in a family misses something more important
than playmates; he misses all the education of play
and service. But who cannot remember many
families that have grown to beauty of character
under the discipline of home life, and especially
when this has involved real sacrifices ? The stories
in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that blos-
soms imder the trials and hardships of the struggle
of a family for a livelihood and for the maintenance
of a home.

A clear fimction becomes evident for this social
group called the family. It is that of dealing with
young hves, in groups bound by ties of blood and

J b, Google

Peruanent Eleuents in Fauhy Life 35

similarity, for purposes of the development of per*
sooal character. The family has an essentially
educational function. Bearing in mind that "edu-
cational" means the orderly development of the
powers of the life, we can think of our families as
existing for this purpose and to be tested by thdr
ability to do this work, especially by their ability
to develop persons, young lives, that have the
power, the vision, the acquired habits and expe-
rience to live as more than animals. The family
is an educational institution dealing with child-life
for its full growth and its self-realization, eq)ecially
oa character levels. The educational function
suggests the features of family life which we
do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental
forms may pass, but the essential human relations
and experiences that go to develop life and char-
acter must be maintained at any cost.

I. KEraKENCBS TOE StODY

C. F. and C. B. Thwing, The Family, chap, vil Lothrop,

Lee & Shepaid, ti.60.
W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and lie Family, chaps, iv, v.

Hodder & Stoughton, $a. 50.

n. Further Rhasino
"The Improvement of Religious Education," Proceedings oj

Ike Xdip^fus Education Associatitm, 1, 119-33. $0.50,
Religious Edmaiion, April, 1911, VI, 1-48.
S. P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, The Dehnquenf Child

and the Home. Russell Sage Foundation, ta.oo.

J b, Google

36 Reugious Educahon ih the Family

m. Tones roK Discussiok
I. What b the duef end of all fonns of social oiganiza-
tkin?

3, What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent ?

3. What advantage has the family over the school and
larger groups for educational purposes?

4. In what tease is the funily an ideal democracy?

5. Show how the family sets qriritual values first.

6. What in youi judgmoit are the first evidences of
character developmoit? In what way do these ccnne to
the surface in the family? What is the factor of love in
the development of character?

7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members
bear pain or are called upon for self-denial ? Can you see
any eq>ecial advantage to character in the very difficulties
and iqqiaiait disadvantages in the life of the family?

J b, Google

CHAPTER IV

THE REUGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY
§ I. DEVELOPMENT AS A BELIGIOUS INSTITUTION

The family b the most impoitant religious insti-
tution in the life of today. It ranks in influence
before the chmth. It has always held this place.
Even among primitive peoples, where family life
was an uncertain quantity, the relations of parents,
or of one of the parents, to the children afford^
the opportunity most frequently used for their
instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs.
We cannot generalize as to the practices of savage
man in regard to family Ufe, for those practices
range from common promiscuous relationships,
without apparent care for ofi^ring, to a family
unity and purity approaching the best we know;
but this much is certain, that there was a common
sense of res^wnsibility for the training of young
children in moral and religious ideas and customs,
and that, in the degree that the family a[^roached
to separateness and unity, it accepted the primary
responsibility for this task. The higher the type
of family life the more fully does it discbarge its
function in the education of the child.'

■ For a brief Btatement see Brinton, Religunu of Primiiivt
Peopks, Lecture 4, J 7; also Todd, Tht Family as an Edticalionai
Agency.

J b, Google

38 Reugious Education m the ^AWLy

It nught be safe to say that among priinitive
peoples there were three stages, or types, of rela-
tionship based on the breeding of children, or three
stages of development toward family life. The
first is a loose and indefinite relationship existing
principally between the adults, or the males and
females, under which children bom when not
desired are neglected or strangled and, when
acceptable, may be in the care of either parent,
or of neither. Since the group, associated through
infancy with at least one parent, is as yet unde-
veloped, any instruction will be individual and
usually incidental.

The second form is that of a kind of family
unity, either about the mother or the father, or
both, or about a group of parents, in which the
children live together and are sheltered and nur-
tured for their earlier years. Here, however, the
real relationship of the child is to the tribe, the
family is but his temporary guardian, and, at
least by the age of puberty, he will be initiated
into the tribal secrets. If he is a boy, he will cease
to be a member of the family group and will go to
Uve in the "men's house," becoming a part of the
larger life of the tribe.' Such moral and religious
instruction as he may acquire will come from the
songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears
asadiild.

■ See Webster, PrimiHw Secret Sodetiei, chaps, i, ii.

J b, Google

Religious Place oe the Family 39

The third type approaches the modem ideal,
mth a greater or less degree of pennanent unity
between the two parents and with permanence in
the group of the offspring. The parental responsi-
bility continues for a greater length of time and,
since the tribe makes smaller claims, and the parents
live in the common domestic group, much more in-
struction is possible and is given. The tribal ideals,
the traditions, observances, and religious rites are
imparted to children gradually in their homes.

The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception
of family life. It developed toward the Christian
ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted; woman
was the chattel of man and excluded from any part
_ in the religious rites. But it included the ideal
of monc^amy in its tradition of the origin of the
world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut.
32:22), and it gave espedal attention to the train-
ing of the offspring. "And these words, which
I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart;
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest
in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up ... . and thou shalt write them upon the
door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates"
(Deut. 6:6, 7,9).

Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that
in some Jewish family there shoidd be bom one

J t>; Google

40 Reugious Educahon in the Fahilv

divinely cxnnmissioned and endowed to liberate
Israel and to give the Jews woild-soverdgnty,
operated to elevate the conception of motherhood
and, through that, of the family. It made mar-
rif^ dedrable and children a blessing; it rendered
motherhood sacred. It tended to center national
hopes and religious ideals about the family.'

There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in
the Old Testament. Tliey are all summed up in
the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words
of King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of
Proverbs. It must be remembered, however, that
such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, that
Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity
and wifely devotion, that Greek and Roman his-
tory have their Cornelia, Iphigenia, and Mallonia.*

The Jews are an excellent example of the power
of the family life to maintain distinct character-
istics and to secure marked development. Practi-
cally throughout all the Christian era they have
been a people without a land, a constitution, or a
government, and yet never without race con-
sciousness, national unit?, and separateness. Thdr
unity has continued in spite of dispersion, perse-
cution, and losses; they have remained a race in

'On the place of the famflyin different religious systema see
the fine article under "Family". la Hastings, Encyclopaedia
of RtUgion and Ethks.

' See Lecky, History of European Morals, chap. ii.

J b, Google

Religious Place or the Faioly 41

the face of political stonns tliat have swept other
peoples away. Their unity has a>ntinued about
two great centers, the customs of religioii and the
life of the family.

The results of Jewish re^>ect for family life can sbo be
seen in the health of thui own chUdren. In 1910, for
instance, among poor Jews in Manchester the mortality of
infants under one year of age was found to be 118 per thou-
sand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per thousand; and com-
parisons nmde some six years ago between Jewish and
gentile children in schools in the poorer parts ot Manchester
and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children
are uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their Ixxies aad
teeth are superior.'

§ 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAICLY

The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself,
not as a new institution, for it has developed out
of earlier race experience, but as controlled by a
new mterpretation, the ^irit and conception of
the home and family given in the teaching of Jesus
of Nazareth. He did not give formal rules for
the regulation of homes; rather he made a ^iritual
ideal of family life the basic thought of all his
teaching. He said more about the family than
concerning any other human institution, yet he
established no family life of his own. He is called
the founder of the church, yet he scarcely mentions

■ Quoted by Loftliouse Id Etkies and the Family, p. 8, from
W. Hall, in Propta (London), April, 1907.

J b, Google

43 Religious Education in toe Famh-y

that institution, while he frequently teaches con-
coning home duties and family relations. He
^orifies the relations of the family by making
them the figure by which men'may understand
the highest relations of life. He speaks more of
fatherhood and stmship than of any other relations.
He gives direction for living, using the family terms
of brotherhood. He points forward to ideal living
in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when
they think of God and when they address him to
take the family attitude and call him Father.

If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and
separate them from our preconceptions of their
theological content, we cannot but be impressed
with the facts that he seized upon the family life
as the best expres^on of the hi^est relationships;
that he pointed to a purified family life, in which
^iritual aims would dominate, as the best egres-
sion of ideal relationships among his followers;
and that he glorified marriage and really made the
family the great', divine, sacramental institution of
human society.

We can hardly overestimate the importance of
such teaching to the character of the family. The
early Christians not only accepted Jesus as their
teacher and savior; they took their family life as
the opportunity to show what the Kingdom of
God, the ideal society, was like. Family life was
consecrated. Men and women belonged to the

J b, Google

Reugious Place of the Family 43

new order with their whole households. Religion
became largely a family matter. The worship
that had been confined to the temple now made
an altar in every home and a holy of holies in the
midst of every family. The scriptures that be-
longed to the synagogue now belonged in the home.
Above all, this family existed for the purposes
tau^t by Jesus, that men might grow in brother-
hood toward the likeness of the divine Father-
hood. It was an institution, not for economic
purpose of food and shelter, not for personal ends
of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for
the growth of persons, especially the young in the
home, in character, into "the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ."

Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal
family life. It conceives of human society, not in
terms of a monarchy with a king and subjects,
but in teims of a family with a great all-Father
and his children, who live in brotherhood, who
take life as their opportuni^ for those family joys
of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the
world's ills, not by external regulations, but by
bringing all men into a new family life, a birth
into this new family life with God, so securing
a new personal environment, a new personality
as the center and root of all social betterment. He
who would come into this new social order mast
come into the divine family, must humble himself

J b, Google

44' Reuoioos Education m the Famut

and become as a little child, must know his Father
and love hfs brothers.

Christianily, then, not only seeks an ideal
family; it makes the family the ideal sodal insti-
tuticHi and order. It makes family life holy,
sacramental, religious in its very nature. This
fact gives added importance to the preservation
and development of the ideals of family life for
the sake of their religious ^gnificance and induence.
It not only makes religion a part of the life of the
home but makes a religious purpose the very
reason for the existence of the Christian type of
home. It makes our homes essentially religious
institutions, to be judged by religious products.

I. Re?EX£NC£3 for StUDY

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, chap, xvi

Revdl,|i.3S.
Article on "The Family," in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of

Riiipon atid Eihict.

n. FORTHEX RkASINC

On the educational function of the family: A. J. Todd, The

Primitive Family as an Educational Agency. Putnam,

li.oo.
On the religious place of the family: C.F. andC.B.Thwing,

The Family. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $i.6o.
I. J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," Seligious Edvca-

lion, VI, 333.
H. Hanson, Tke Function of the Family. American Baptist

Publication Society, |o. 15.

J b, Google

Religious Place of the Family 45

W. Becker, Christian Education, or Ike DtOies of P<^ent3,
Harder, $1.00. A striking presenUtion of the Roman
C«tb(^ view; could be read to advantage by all
paicnts.

in. Topics fob Discussion
I. Wbat place did rdigion hold in the primitive family?

What reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament

to the [dace of religion in the family (Dent. 6:7-9, 30-35) 7

What in the New Testament ?

3. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the

Jewish race?

3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of
Jesus?

4. Wbat shall we think of the rdations of the church
■nd family as to their comparative rights and our duty to
them?

5. Do you agree that the family is the most important
religious institution ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER V

THE UEANING OF REUGIOUS EDUCATION IN
THE FAMILY

§ I. THE FUNCnON Or THE FAMILY

With the brief statement of the history of the
family and of its fimction in society which has
already been given we are prepared to put tt^ther
the two conclusions: £rst, that the family has an
' educational function, in that it exists as a social
institution for the protection, nurture, develop-
ment, and training of young lives, and, secondly,
that it is a religious institution, the most influ-
ential and important of all religious institutions,
whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its
pos^ilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty.
It exists for personal and spiritual ideals and, in
Christianity, it is inseparably connected with the
teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational
in function and religious in character, so that it is
essentially an institution for religious education.
Religious education is not an occasional incident
in its life; it is the very aim and dominatii^ pur-
pose of a high-minded family.

§ 2. WHAT IS RSOIGIOUS EDUCATION?

To make this the more clear we may need to
clarify our minds as to certain popular conceptions

J b, Google

Meaning of Reugious Education 47

' of education. /Education means much more than
instruction; religious education means much more
than instruction in religion. S Many habitually
think of an educational institution as necessarily
a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers pre-
side over classes, the teachers imparting information
which is to be memorized by the pupils, so that,
from this point of view, a Sunday school would be
almost the only institution for the religious edu-
cation of children in existence, because it is the
only one exclusively devoted to imparting instruc-
tion to children in specifically religious subjects.
Such a view would limit religious education in the
home to the formal teaching ol the Bible and
religious dogma by parents. The memorizing
of scriptural passages and of the different cate-
chisms once constituted a regular duty in almost
all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely at-
tempted. Does that mean that regions education
has ceased in the home ?

But education means much more than instruc-
tion. Education is the whole process, of which
instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly
development of lives, according to sdentiEc prin-
ciples, into the fulness of their powers, the real-
ization of all their possibilities, the joy of their
world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their
service. It includes the training of powers of
thought, feeling, willing, and doing; it includes

J b, Google

48 R£ijGious Education in the Faioly

the development of abilities to discern, discrimi-
nate, cboose, detennine, feel, and do. It prepares
the life for living with other lives; it prepares the
whole of the life, developing the higher nature, the
life of the spirit, foi living in a spiritual univeise.
/Religious education, then, means much more
tUan instruction in the literature, history, and phi-
losophy of religion. It means the kind of directed
development which r^ards the one who b devel-
oping as a religious person, which seeks to develop
that one to fulness of religious powers and person-
ality, and which uses, as means to that end,
material of religious inspiration and ^gnificance
and, indeed, regards all material in that light.
Religious education seeks to direct a reli^ous
process of growth with a reli^ous purpose for
religious persons. [Religious education is the
spirit which characterizes the work ci every edu-
cator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature,
a religious person; it is the work of every educator
who sees his aim as that of training this spiritual
person to fulness of living in a society essentially
spiritual.]

In simplest possible terms, religious education
means the training of persons to live the reli^ous
life and to do their work in the world as religious
persons. It must mean, then, the development
of character; it includes the aim, in the parents'
minds, to bring their children up to the measure

J b, Google

Meaiong of Religious Gddcation 49

of the stature of the fidnesa of Christ. It is evi-
dent that this is a much greater task, and yet
more natural and beautiful, than mere instruction
in foimal ideas or words in the Bible or in a
catechism; that it is not and cannot be accom-
plished in some single period, some set hour,
but is continuous, through all the days; that it
pervades not only the ^>oken words, but the
actions, organization, and the very atmosphere of
the home.

§3. THE EDUCATIONAL PKOCESS

Normal persons never stop growing. Just as
children grow all the time in their bodies, so do
adults and all others grow all the time in mind and
will and powers of the higher life whenever they
Uve normally. We grow Epiritually, not only in
church and under the stimulus of song and prayer,
but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals
to us, when the face lightens at the face of a
friend, wheb we meet and master a temptation,
when we brace up under a load, when we do faith-
fully the dreary, daily task, when we adjust our
thoughts in sympathy to others, when we move
in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The
educational process is continuous. The children
in the home are being moved, stimulated, every
instant, and they are beii^ changed in minute but
nevertheless real and important degrees by each

J b, Google

50 Reugioos Education in the Family

impression. There is never a moment in which
their character is not bang developed either for
good or for ill. Religious education — that is, the i
development of thdr lives as reli^ous persons — |
goes on all the time in the home, and it is either '
for good or for ill.

Next to the idea of the continuous and all-
pervasive character of this process of religious
development the most important thought for us
is that religious education in the home may be
determined by ourselves. This continuous, fate-
ful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is our
duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents
to determine the characters of their children.
We must not forget this. It cannot be too strongly
insisted on. The development of life is under
law. This is an orderly world. Thii^ do not
just happen in it. We believe in a law that
determines the type of a cabbage, the character
of a weed. Do we believe that this universe is
so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none
for the higher life of man? Do we hold that
cabbages grow by law but character comes by
chance? If there is a law we may find it and
must obey it. If we may know how to develop
character, with as great certainty as we know
how to do our daily work, will not this be our
highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing
to do in life?

J b, Google

Meaning of Reugious Education 51

§ 4.' the consequent obugaxion
This is the first great obligation of parents and
of those who are willing to accept the joys and
respon^ilities of parenthood, ^e have no right
to bring into this worid lives with all the possi-
bilities that a religious nature involves unless we
know how to develop those lives for the best and
from the worsjtJ When we picture what a little
child may become, from the vile, depraved, despoil-
ing beast or the despicable, sne^dng hypocrite on
one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, man-
serving man or woman with the love of purity,
honor, truth, and goodness speaking through the
life, we may well pause, realizing we need more
than a sentimentiil desire that the child may reach
the heights of goodness: we must know the way
there and the methods of leading the life in that
way. True devotion to God and to childhood will
mean more than petitions for the salvation of
children; it will mean the prayer that is labor
and the labor that is prayer to know how they
may attain fulness of spiritual life; it will mean
reverent searching into the divine ways of growth
in grace. CJhe study of the means and methods
of religious education, especially of children, in
the home and family, is one of the most evident
and important religious duties resting on parents
and all who contemplate marriage and family
lifej

J b, Google

S3 Religious EotrcAnoN in the FAun,y

i, 5. WHAT IS IfEANT BY THE KELIGIOTTS DEVELOP*
ICENT OF THE CHILD?

In discussing the development of chaiactei in
children one hears often the question, "Which is
the earliest virtue to appear in a child?" People
will debate whether it is truthfulness, reveren<x,
kindness, or some other virtue. All this implies
a picture of the child as a tree that sends forth
shoots of sqiarate virtues one after another. But
the character desired is not a series of branches,
it is rather like a symmetrical tree; it is not certain
parts, but it is the whole of a personality. Hie
develc^ment of religious character is not a matter
of consdously separable virtues, but is the deter-
mination of tlie trend and quality of the whole life.
Moral training is not a matter of cultivating
honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness
the day after. Virtues have no separate value.
Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of
independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a
whole life, loves and follows truth, goodness, and
servi<».

$ 6. EAKLY TENDENCIES

But it is wise to inquire as to those manifesta-
tions of a pure and spiritual life which will eapliest
appear. One does not need to look far for the
answer. Children are always affectionate; they
manifest the possibilities of love. TVue, this

J b, Google

Meaning ot Religious Education 53

affection 13 rooted in physiological experience,
based on relations to the mother and on daily pro-
pinquity to the rest of the family, but it is that
which may be colored by devotion, elevated by
unselfish service, and may become the first great,
ideal loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will
fi^t and girls will quarrel more readily over the
question of the merits of their respective parents
than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a
child can talk he boasts of the valor of his father,
the beauty of his mother. Here is loyalty at work.
He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as
to their superiority, not because they give him
food and shelter, but because they are his, because
to him they are worthy; in all things they have
the worth, the highest good; they are, m person,
the virtue of life. Therefore in fighting for the
reputation of his parents he is practicing loyalty
to an ideal.

The principle of loyalty is the life-force of
virtue; it is like the power that sends the tree
toward the heavens, the upthnjst of life. It may
be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there
is the outreach and upreach of loyalty within and
that there is furnished without the worthy object,
ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and
increase in character, beauty, and strength.

Next to the affectionate idealization, of parents
and home-folk one of the earliest manifestations

J b, Google

54 RxuoiOETs Edttcation in the Family

of the spirit of loyal^ in the child is bis desire to
have a share in the activities of the home. He
would not only look, like those he admires; he
would do what they do. This is more than mere
imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The
direction of this tendency is one of the largest
opportunities before parents and can make the
most important contribution to character.

The religious life of the child is essentially a
matter of loyalty. His faith, affections, aspira-
tions, and endeavors turn toward persons, insti-
tutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He
does not analyze, he cannot describe, or even nar-
rate, his religious experiences, but he affectionately
moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those
things which seem to him ideal, toward parents,
customs of the home or school, the church, his
class, his teacher, toward characters in story-
books. He is likely to think of Jesus in just that
way, as the one person whom he would most of
all like to know and be with. The life of virtue
and the rehgious life then will be weak or strong
in the measure that the child has the stimulating
ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the meas-
lire that he has opportunity to express that loyalty.
Ws religious life will consist, not so much in
external forms perhaps, still less in intellectual
statements about theology or even about his own
experiences, as in a growing realization of the great

J b, Google

Meaning of REuGions Education 55

ideals, an increasmg sense of their meaning and
reaUty within, and, on the objective side, a steady
moving of his life toward them in action and
habits and therefore in character and quality. -

§ 7. lUFOSTANT CONSIDEKAXIONS

It is worth while to insist upon two important
considerations. Parents who stand as gardeners
watching the growth of the tender plant of child-
character may be looking for developments that
never ought to come and will be disappointed
because they were looking for the wrong thing.
First, in watching for the beginnings of the reli-
gious life of the child in the family we are not ex-
pecting some new addition to the life, but rather
the development of this whole life as a unity in
a definite direction which we call religious. It is
the first and most important consideration that
religious education is not something added to the
life as an extra subject of interest, but the develop-
ment of the whole life into religious character and
usefulness. Secondly, this growth of religious
character is going on all the time. It is not sepa-
rable into pious periods; it is a part of the very
life of the family Perhaps this increases the diffi-
culty of our task, for it removes it from the realm
of the mechanical, from that which is easily appre-
hended and estimated. It takes the task of the
religjous education of children out of the statistical

J b, Google

56 Reugious Education in the Family

into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing
life every second, that there b never a moment
when religious education is not in operation. This
demands a considerati(m, not alone of lessons, of
periods of worship and instruction, but of every
influoice, activity, and agoicy in all the family
life that in any way affects the thinking, feeling,
and action of the child. We are thinking of some-
thing more important than organizing instruction
and exercises in religion in the home; we are think-
ing of organizing the family life for religious pur-
poses, for the purpose of growing lives into their
^iritual fulness.

Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious
education of the family is that we overemphasize
fhjg or the other method and mechanism instead
of bending every effort to secure a real religious
atmosphere and soil in which yoimg souls can
really grow while we leave the process of growth
more largely to the great husbandman. And the
second great mistake is that we are looking for
mechanical evidence of a religious life instead of
for the development of a whole person. We must
reinterpret the family to ourselves and see it as the
one great opportunity life affords us to grow other
lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by pro-
viding a social atmosphere of the spirit and a con-
stant, normal presentation of social Uving in
spiritual terms.

J b, Google

Meaning or Religious Education 57

S 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY

When parents conceive the family in these
terms and so organize the life of the home, the
child bec<Hnes conscious of the fact, and at once
the life of the family furnishes him with his first,
his nearest, and most satisfactory appeal to loyalty.
He feels that which he cannot analyze or express,
the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life.
That life furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his
soul. It is an atmosphere made of many elements:
the primary and dominating purpose of parents
and older persons, the habitual life of service and
tove, the consciousness of the reality of the Divine
Presence, the fragrance of chastened character and
experience, the customs of worship and affections,
lliese things are not easily created, they cajmot
be readily defined, nor can directions be given in
a facile manner for their cultivation. Iliey are
the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of
all to secure when lacking, least easily labeled, not
to be purchased ready-made, and yet without
them religious education is wholly impossible in
the family. Without this immediate appeal to
loyal^ the loyalties of the child towanl higher
and divtoe aims do not develop early; they are
retarded and often remain dormant. For us all
scarcely any more important question can be pre-
sented than this: What appeals to spiritual ideal-
ism and loyalty does our family life present to the

.b, Google

$8 Religious Education in the Family

chfld ? What quickening of love for goodness and
purity, truth and service, is there in the home and
its conduct ?

I. RSFEBENCES 101 STUDY

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Uorab, diaps. i, ii, xii,

nil. Revell, (1.35.
George Hodges, Training of CkHdren in Rdigion, diafs. i,

ii Appleton, $i . 50.
J. T. McFarland, PraernalUm versus Sfstmeclion. Eaton

& Muns, $0.07.

n. PUSTHEE RlUDING

C. W. Votaw, Progress of Moral and Religious Education
in the American Home. Religious Education Associa-
tion, %o. 35.

George Hodges, Training of Children, chaps, i, ii, xv.
Appleton, $1.50.

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, di^». i, iv,
rvL Revell, $1 . 35,

£. C. mim, C«ifwe of ReHgion, chaps, i, ii. Pilgrim
Press, |o. 75.

C. W. RischeU, The Child as God's Child. Methodist Book
Concern, $0.75.

E. E. Read Mumford, The Dawn of Character. Longmans,
Green & Co., $1.30. See eq)eciaily chap, lii on "The
Dawn of Religion."

m. Topics fok Discussion

I. How would you define education ?

3. What is the difference between education and reli-
gious education ?

3. What makes the home eq>ecially elective in educa-
tion?

J b, Google

Meaning or Religious Education 59

4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of
growth and so determine the development of character ?

5. Recall any veiy early manifestations of religious
character in small children. What would you r^ard as the -
best kind of manifestation?

6. What is the essential principle of the right life?
How may we develop this in childhood?

7. What are the thin^ which most of all unpress cbil*
dien?

S. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the
influence of a religious revival ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER VI
THE CHILD'S REUGIOUS n>£AS
How shall I begin to talk with my child about
rdi^on? Even the most religious paraits feel
hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the
iinffliniKarity of the subject, though that is often
the case; hesitation is due principally to a con-
sdous artificiality in the action. It seems un-
natural to say, "My child, I want to talk with
you about your religious life." And so it is.
There is something wnmg when that spears to
be the only way. That situation indicates a lack
of freedom of thou^t and intercourse with the
child and a lack of naturalness in religion.

§ I. THE PtraDAMENTAL DIPFICULTY

llie instinct is correct that tells t:s that we should
be trespas^ng on a child's rights, or breaking down
his proper reticence, in abruptly and fonnally
questioning him about his religious life. The
reserve of children in this matter must be respected.
The inner life of aspiration, of conscious relation-
ship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even
to those who are near to us. He violates the child's
reverence who tears away his reticence. Even
though the child may not consciously object, the
60

J b, Google

The Child's Relk^ous Ideas 6i

process leads him toward the irreverent, facile
self-exposure of the soul that characterizes some
prayer meetings. But we may, also, as easily
err in the other direction and, by failing to invite
the confidences of our children, lead them to sup-
pose we have no interest in their hi^er life.

§ 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

First, we must be content to wait for the child
to open his heart. We must not force the door.
But we can invite him to open, and the one form
of invitation that scarcely ever f^ls is for you to
give him your confidence. Talk honestly, simply
to him of the aspects of your religious life that he
can understand. If he knows that you confide in
him, he will confide in you. Here beware of senti-
mentality. Religion to the child will find expres-
sion in everyday e^>eriences. Your philosophy
of religion he cannot comprdiend, and with your
mature emotions he has no point of contact. Per*
h^s the best method of approach is to relate your
memories of those experiences which you now see
to have had religious significance to you. At the
time they may have had no such special meaning.
You did not then analyze them. Your child will
not and must not analyze them, either; he must
smply feel them.

Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and
seasons" notion. There is no more reason why

J b, Google

63 REUGiotrs Education m the Fauily

you should talk religion <m Sunday than on Mon-
day, unless the day's interests have quickened
the child's questioning. There can be no set
period; no times when you say, "lliis is the forty-
five minutes of spiritual instruction and conversa^
tion." The time available may be very short,
only a saitence may be possible, or it may be
lengthened; everything will depend on the interest.
It must be natural, a leal part of the everyday
thought and talk, lifted by its character and sub-
ject to its own level. Its value d^ends on its
natural reality.

§ 3. BEUGIODS EBALirV
Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding con-
versation on "religion" with religious conversation,
of thinking that the desired end has been attained
vrh&i you have discussed the terminology of theol-
ogy. To illustrate, in the family one hardly ever
hears the word hygiene, but well-trained children
leain much about the care of theii bodies in health,
and the family economy is directed consciously
to that end. A good, nourishing meal always
contributes more to health than many lectures on
dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's
mind, is the science of dietetics. So is it with
quickening the child's power and thought in the
spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the
intellectually analytical. Religion should present

jbyGooi^lc

The CHnj>'s Keugious Ideas 63

itself concretely, practically, and as an atmosphere
and ideal in the family. We parents must not
look for theological interest in the child. A
Timothy Dwight at ten or twelve, thou^ once
found in Sunday-school library books, is a mon-
strosity, llie child's aspiration, his religious de-
votion, his love for God will find e:q>ression in
almost every other way before it will be formulated
into questions of a serious theological character.
Nor ought we to force upon him the phrases of
religion to which we are accustomed. He will live
in another day and must speak its tongue. His
faith must find itself in consciousness and then be
permitted to clothe itself in appropriate gannents
of words. Those garments must be woven out of
the realities of actual experiences in the child's
life. We cannot prepare or make them for him.
The expression of religion will be consonant with
the st^e of development. If his faith is to be
real he must never be allowed or tempted to imagine
that if only he can use the words, the verbal qon-
bol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then
to use words which are simple and meaningful to
him and be content to wait for lite to lead him to
formulate vital verbal forms for himself.

§4. PATIENCE AND COMUON-SENSE

Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of
growth. If we be but faithful, furnishing the soil,

jb, Google

64 Religious Education in the Famh-y

the seed, the uurtuie, we must wait for the increase.
Many factors which we cannot control wi]l deter-
mine whether it shall be early or late and what form
it shaU take. We must wait. It is high folly
that pulls up the grouting grain to see whether it
b growing properly.

Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will
vary in childroi and in families. The commonest
error is to expect some one popular form alone,
to imagine that all children must pass through
some standardized experiences. Mrs. Brown's
Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be
downhearted. Willy is only doing that which
he has seen his parents do, and, usually, cmly be-
cause they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking
health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in
character. Let them grow, help them to grow.
You know they love you even when they say little
about it; you do not expect them to climb to the
housetop and declare their affection. A flower
does not sing about the sun, it grows toward it.
That b the test of the child's religion : Is he growing
Godward in life, action, character ?

§5. THE CONSaOUSNESS OF GOD

Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's
consciousness of God. The truth is that the child
in the average home has a consciousness of God.
It grows out of formal references in social rites

J b, Google

1^ Child's Reugious Ideas 65

and customs, infonnal allusioas in conversation,
and direct statemaits and instraction. But fre-
quently the resultant mental picture is a misleading
erne, sometimes even vicious in its moral effect.
Where superstitious servants take more interest
in the child's religious ideas than do his parents,
we have the child whose life is darkened by the
fear of an omnipotent ogre. Nursemaids will
slothfuUy scare small children into silence by
threats of the awful presence of a bogey god. The
life of the spirit cannot be trusted to the hireling.
Parents must be sure of the character as well as
the superficial competency of those who come
closest to childhood. A child's ideas are formed
before he goes to school. The family cannot
delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons
trained only for nursery tasks.

But frequently the mother is a misleading
teacher. To her the child goes with all the big
questions outside the immediate world of things.
Is she prepared to answer the questions? Few
dilemmas of our life today are more pathetic than
this: the mother has outgrown the theology of
her childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering
and superstition, the struggle that followed the
darkened pictures die received as a little one, but
she has nothing better to offer the child. No one
has taught her how to put the later, more spiritual
conc^ts into language for the child of our day.

J b, Google

66 Reugioits Eddcation in the Faulv

Weakly she falls back on the foims of woids she
once abhorred.

There are certainly two ^^roaches of reality
for the child-mind to the idea of God. Two inune-
diate experiences are rich in meaning; they are
the life of the family and the wonder of the every-
day world, the life and variety of nature and human
activities. The first is a very simple and rich
i^proach. By every possible means help children
in the family to think of God as the great and good
Father of us all. Do this in the phrasing of prayers
and graces, in the answers to their questions, in the
casual word. Why should we assume that the
Fatherhood of God is for the adult alone? And
why should it be that this rich concept dawns on
us like a new day of freedom in truth in later years
instead of becoming ours in childhood and so
deteimining the habit and attitude of our lives?
The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the
father. God in terms of fatherhood is the sum
and source of all that is ideal in personality. .^
, The child's keen interest in the world of nature
is our opportunity to lead liim to love the gracious
source of all beauty and goodness. How keen is
the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world!
Can we forever fix the general concept of all this
beauty as the thought of God in the words of
flower and leaf, mountain and stream ? And might
we not also connect the idea of God with the affairs

J b, Google

The Child's Religious Ideas 67

of daily life? That depends on the parent's atti-
tude of mind; if we think of the universal life that
is behind all battles and business and afEairs, there
will be a difference in our answers to the thousand
curious inquiries that rise in the child's mind.

Nor jnust we leave the child to think of God as
a separate, far-off person, on a tlm>ne somewhere
in the skies. The child is finding his way into a
xmiverse. The God who is a minute fraction of
that universe makes possible the religion that is no
more than a negligible fraction of life. The child
asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds,
and all the world about him; he tends to interpret
it causally and ideally. Childhood affords the
great opportunity for giving the color, the beauty
and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe,
to instil the feeling that God is ever)rwhere, in all
and through all, and that in him we live and move
and have our being. The child's joy in this world
can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings

My God, I thank thee thou hast made

This earth so bright . . . . ,

and so beauty and joy become part of his religion.
His faith becomes a gladsome thing; he knows that
the trees of the forest clap their hands, the moun-
tains and the ^'Ht sing, and the morning stars
chant together in the gladness of the divine life.

Such a view of the world comes not by pre-
arranged and indoor interviews. One must walk

J b, Google

68 Religious Editcation m the FAioLy

out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity
and th^ inq)iiatioa. The garden plot, the park,
and, best of all, the open fields and woods speak
to a child and furnish us an open book from wUch
we may teach him to read. Recalling religious
impressions, the writer would testify to feeling
nothing deeper, as a result of church attaidance
in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the
colors of walls; but there remain deep impressions
of wonder, beauty, and the meaning of God from
Sunday mornings spent with his father under the
great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the
reading and singing of the old hymns, or joining
in conversation on the woods and the flowers, and
even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest.

§6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTDNITIES

Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best
opportunity for direct instruction. A child is a
peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover the
universe; there are no doors which you desire to
see opened that he will not approach at some time.
There is great advantage when the religious ques-
tion rises normally; when the child begins it and
when the interest continues with the same natural-
ness as in conversation on any other subject, llien
questions usually take one of three fonns: mere
childish, curious questions, questions on conduct,
and questions on religion in its organized form.

J b, Google

The Child's Religious Ideas 69

The child's curiosity is the hasis of even those
questions which have usually been credited to
preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who
asks strange questions about God asks equally
startling ones about fairies or about his grand-
mother. But his questions give us the chance to
direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we
need to be sure of our own thoughts and to keep
in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in th^
child loyal^ to the highest and best. He must
be shown a God whom he can love and, at the same
time, one who will call for his growing loyalty, his
courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's
future depends on the pictures he now forms. We
all carry to a large degree our childhood's view
of God.

Some of the child's questions probe deep; how
shall we answer them ? When you know the truth
tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in
language that really conves^s truth to his mind.
The danger is that paraits will attempt to tell
more than they know, to answer questions that
cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or
cowardice or ignorance, tell children untrue things.
If a child asks, "Did God make the world?" the
answer that will be true to the child may be a
simple affirmative. If the child asks or his query
implies, "Did God make the leaves, or the birds,
with his fingers ? " we had better take time to show

.b, Google

70 Rehgious Education m tee FAuiLy

the difFeroice between man's making of things
and the working of the divine energy through all
the process of the development of the world.
When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all
things, why did he make the devil?" it would
surely be wise and opportune to correct the child's
mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take
from him his bogey of a "devil." But the question
of the relation of God to the existence of evil would
remain, and the best a parent ^x>uld do would be
to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice
and will in life by similar freedom in the
family.

It must be remembered that children's curious
questions are only their att^upt to discover their
world, that they have no pecuUar religious sig-
nificance, but that they afford the parent a vital
opportunity for direct religious instruction, lliese '
questions must be treated seriously; something
is missing in parental consciousness when the
child's questions ftunish only material for jesting
relation to the family friends.

§ 7. MOKAL TEACHING

Questions on conduct: Scores of times in the
day the children come in from play or from school
and tell of what has happened. Their more or less
breathless recitals very often include vigorous ac-
counts of "cheating," "naughtmess," unfair play,

J b, Google

Tke Child's Religious Ideas 71

unkind words, discourtesies, all dependent as to
their character on the age of the children and all
opening doors for free conversation on duties and
conduct Here lies one of the large opportunities
for moral instruction. There is no need to attempt
to make formal occasions for this; so long as chil-
dren play and live with others they are under the
experience of learning the art of living with one
another; this is the simple essence of morality.
The parent's answers to their questions on con-
duct, the comments on their criticisms, and the
conversation that may easUy be directed on these
subjects count tremendously with the child in
establishing his ideals and modes of conduct. Re-
turning to his play, there is no mightier authority
he can quote than to say, "My mother says — ,"
or "My father says—."

Let no one say that instruction in moral living
is not religious, for there can be no adequate
guidance in morals without rehgion, nor can the
religious quality of the life find expression ade-
quately except through conduct in social living.
Children need more than the rules for living; they
must feel motives and see ideals. They do not
live by rules any more than we do. Besides the
rule that is known there must be a reason for
following it and a strong desire to do so. All
ethical teaching needs this imperative and motiva-
tion of religion, the quickening of loyalty to hig}i

J b, Google

73 RsuGioira Education IN the Family

ideak, the d<nag of the right for reasons of love
as well as of duty and profit.

Tlie father's o p portunity comes especially with
the b<^. They are sure to bring to him their
ethical questions on games and sport; he knows
more about boys' fights and struggles than does
the mother. When the boys begin to discuss their
games the father cannot afford to lack interest.
Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the
most important one of the day to the boy and, for
the interests of his character, it may be the most
important for many a day to the father. If he
answers with sympathy and interest this question
on a "foul baU" or on marbles or peg-b^, he has
opened a door that will always stay open so long
as he ^proaches it with sincerity; if he slights it,
if he is too busy with those lesser things that seem
great to him, he has closed a door into the boy's
life; it may never be opened again. Children
learn life through the life they are now living.
Real preparation for the world of business and
larger responsibilities comes by the child's experi-
oices of his present world of play and schooling
and family living. To help him to live this present
life aright is the best training that can be given
for the right living of all life.

Questions on organised religion: As children
grow up, the church comes into their range of
interests. Just as they often make the day school

aob, Google

The Child's Relictods Ideas 73

focal for conversaticm, as they recount their day's
work there, so they retain impressions of the chtirch
school, of the services of the church, and will
always ask many questions about this institution
and its observances. Here is the opportunity, in
free conversation, to tell the child the meaning of
the church, the significance of membersh^> therein,
and to lead him to conscious relationship to the
society of the followers of Jesus. (See chap, xvii,
"The Family and the Church.") -

/

I. Retexehces fos Study
Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," The

Aims of Religions Education, pp, 330-38. Religioua

Education Association, %i . 00.
W. G. Eoons, Child's Religious Life, sec II. Eaton &

Mains, (i . 00.
J. Sully, CkHdren's Ways, ch^. vL A[^letoD, ti . 35.

U. FUKTHEE Reading
George Hodges, The Training of Children in Religion, chaps.

i^d, Appteton, ti.50.
George E. Dawson, The Child and His Religion, chap. ii.

The University of Chicago Press, $0. 75.
£dward Lyttleton, The ComerStone of Education, chap. Z' W "

viil Putnam, %i . 50.
T. Stq>heiis (ed.). The Chad and Religion. Putnam. |i. 50
C. W. RkheU, The Child as God's Child. Eaton & Mains,

16-75-
W. G. Koons, The Child's ReUpous Nature. Eaton &

Msuns/fi.oo.

^19?

J b, Google

74 Rbugiocs E^dcahon in the Family

EH. Totks for Discussion
I. Wb&t Me the fecial difficulties which you feel about

introducing the topic of religion to children? DcsctSk

any methods oi modes of iqiproach which have seemed

successful?

3. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems

unwilling to talk about religion? What do you think

" religion " means to the child-mind ?

3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what
factors probably determine the difieience?. What was
your own childish conception of God? Did you love
God or tear him? Why?

4. Is it ever ri^t to teach the child those conceptions
which we have outgrown? What about Santa Glaus
and fairies? How can you use childish figures of speech
as an avenue to more exact truth ?

5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes?
Through which agency do we seek to convey religious ideas?

6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate
relation between conduct and religion? How would you
do this ?

7. Give some of the characteristics of a reli{pous child of
seven years, of ten.

J b, Google

CHAPTER Vn

DIRECTED ACTTVITY

Probably all parents find themselves at some
time thinking that the real, fundamental problem
of training their children lies in dealing with their
superabundant energy. "He is such an active
child!" mothers complain. Were he otherwise a
physician might properly be consulted. But the
child's activity does seriously interfere with
parental peace. It takes us all a long time to
leam that we are not, after all, in our homes in
order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train
children into fukess of life. That does not mean
that the home should be without quiet and rest,
but that we must not hope to repress the energy
of childhood. One might as well hope to plug up
a spring in the hillside. Our work is to direct that
activity into glad, useful service.

§ I. VALUE OF ACTIVITY

The things we do not only indicate character,
they determine it. Our thoughts have value and
power as they get into action. To bend our
energies toward an ideal is to make it more real,
to make it a part of ourselves. Children leam by
doing — leam not only that which they are doing
but life itself.

J b, Google

76 Religious Education in iee Family

It may be doubted whether a child ever grew
iriio did not plead to have a share in the work he
saw goin^ on about him. That desire to help is
part of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which
we have spoken above; it is his desire to be true
to the tendency of the home, to give himself to
the realization of its purposes. Of course he does
not think, this out at all. But this desire on the
part of the child to have a hand in the day's work
is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable
and influential form of character direction.

One of the tests of a worthy character is whether
the life b contributory or parasitic, whether one
carries his load, does his work, makes bis contribu-
tion, or simply waits on the world for what he can
get. A religious interpretation of and attitude
toward life is essentially that of self-giving in
service. "My Father worketh hitherto and I
woA." "I must be about my Father's business."
How noticeable is the child's interest in the vivid
word-picture of One who "went about doing good" I

§ 2. THE BLESSING OP LABOR

The home is the first place for life's habituation
to service. The child is greatly. to be pitied who
has no duties, no share in the work. Where the
hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied.
\lt.is the height of mistaken kindness, one of the
common errors of an unthinking, superficial affec-

jb, Google

Directed Acttvity 77

tdpn, to protect oui children from wo^ This is
a world of the moral o^der and of the glory of work.

Whoi the child is very small it must learn this
by having committed to it very simple duties.
As soon as it is able to handle things it may learn
to do that which is most helpful with those things,
to care for its toys, to put them away neatly. A
child can learn while very young to take care of
its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and
paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after
the child; but to do so is to yield to our own sloth.
The more tedious way is the one we must follow
if we would train the child.

Besides the care of his possessions the child will
gladly take a share in the general work of the home.
Let some daUy duty be assigned to each one; such
^mple responsibilities as picking up all papers snd
magazines and seeing that they are properly stacked
or disposed of may be given to one; another may
sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in
one instance a boy of eight did this daily) ; another
may be " librarian," caring for all books; each one,
after dght years of age, should make her own bed;
each one should be entirely respon^le for his
own table in his room. Many homes permit of
many other "chores," such as keeping up the
supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even
a larger animal, keeping a little personal garden
or vegetable plot. Under those normal conditions

J b, Google

78 Relkhocts Education in ihe Family

of living, which some day we may reach, where
each family, or all families, have trees and flowers
and ample space, the opportunities are increased
for joyous child activities which consciously con-
tribute to social well-being as a whole.

§ 3. KEUGION IN ACTION

Perhaps some will say, this is not religious
education, it is everyday training. Yes, it b
"everyday training," but it is the training of a
religious person with the religious purpose of
habituating the child to give his life in service to
his world. That is precisely what we need —
- religion in everyday action. The atmosphere and
habitual attitude and conversation of the family
must be depended on to give a really religious
meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as
religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and
so to make them a training for the life that is
religious, not in word only, but in deed and in
truth.

Whatever we may say to children on the subject
of religion, whether directly or in teaching by
indirection through songs and worship, must pass
over somehow into action in order to have meaning
and reality. It must be realized in order to be
real. The difBculty that appears is that of con-
necting the daily act with its spiritual significance.
Yet tliat is not as difficult as it seems. If the act

J b, Google

Directed Acttvitv 79

has religious significance to us, if we form the habit
of really worshiping God with our work, seeking
in it to do his will, the child will know it. We
cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will
never be more real to the child than it is to
us, and no amount of moralizing or spiritualizing
about our acts or his will give them religious
significance.

At least one person will testify that, after being
brought up in a really religious home, the most
strikingly religious memory of that home is an
occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food
to a ^ck neighbor. It was doing the very thing
that he longed to do, realizing the aspiration that
had been unable to find words or form before.
So the life of action can be steadily trained by
acts of kindness. Habits are acts r^)eated until
they pass from the volitional to the involimtary.
The only process we can follow is steadily to train
the children in the willing and doing of the right,
the good, and the kindly deed, until it becomes
habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of defi-
cacies, pack the flowers we are sending, carry them
over if possible, at least have a share in all our
ministries.'

' A short list of books on child activity in tlie home is B[^>ended
at the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough for
any family, will be found on p. 117 of Tkt Church Sch*ol, by
W. S. Atheom.

.b, Google

8o Religious Education in the Family

The modan Sunday school recognizes the im-
portance of activity in forming religious character;
therefore it plans and organizes social activities
for students to carry out.* The parents ought
to ^ow what is designed for each child in his
respective grade and to plan to co-operate with the
school. Where the family unites in the forms of
service suggested for the children, these activities
lose all perfimctoiiness and take on a new reality.
Sodal usefulness becomes a normal part of life.

Do we remember the best times of our child-
hood ? Were they not when we were doing things ?
And were not the best of these best times when we
were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal,
that gave us a sense of helping someone or of put-
ting into action the best of our thoughts ? That is
the chance and the joy our children are longing
for, and that joy will be their strength.

§ 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE '

The family has excellent opportunities for
developing through its own activities and duties
the habits of the religious life. Children may
acquire ttirou^ daily acts the habit of thinking
of life as just the chance to love and serve. Service
may become perfectly normal to life. Our modem
paupers, whether they tramp the highways or

.b, Google

Directed Activity 8i

ride in private cars, came usually out of homes
where the moral standard interpreted life as just
the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have
without earning. Parental indulgence educates
in pauperism. Let a boy remain the passive bene-
ficiary of all the advantages of a home until he is
dzteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly
difficult to convert him from the pauper habit.

The hard task before parents is to save thdr
children from the snare of pas^ve luxury. Per-
haps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek
to shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is
a wrong to our world. The religious mind is the
one that takes life in terms of service, sees the days
as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with
the towel, and finds honor in bending to do the
little things for the least of men. Vain is all
family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism,
unless we train the feet to walk this way so that
they may visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked,
comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in heart.
The family may make this the normal way to live.

If the family would train boys and girls who
shall be true foUowers of the great Servant, it must
stand among men as a servant, it must see itself
as set in the community to serve, and by habits of
service and helpfulness, by its whole social tone,
it must quicken in its own people the sense of
social obligation and a realization of the delist

J b, Google

82 Religious Education in ihe Family

in self-giving. A home that is selfi^ in relation
to other homes, in relation to its community, can
have no other than selfish, antisocial, and there-
fore irreligious children. The hrst step in the wel-
fare of a child is to see that the home which con-
stitutes his personal atmosphere is steeped in the
spirit of good-will toward men.

The whole attitude of life is determined by the
thought-atmosphere of the family. The greedy
family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping
home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public
peace. Greater than the question whether you
are a good citizen m your relation to the ballot
box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good
citizenship in your home. No amount of Sunday-
school teaching on the Beatitudes or week-day
teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-
drag of envious, antisocial thought and feelii^
and conversation in the home. Home action
and attitude count for more than all besides.

It is equally true that no other influence can
offset the salutary power of a truly social home,
that the easiest, most natural, and effective method
of teaching sodal duty and unselfishness is to do
our whole social duty unselfishly.

§ 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOK SOCIAL LIVING

The supreme test of the religious life here is
ability to live among men as brothers and to cause

J b, Google

Directed Activitv 83

the conditions of the divine family to be realized on
earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus
was to bring men into the family of God, that the
aim of all religious endeavor is the family char-
acter in men and women and the conditions of that
family in all socie^, we must surely appreciate
the possibihty of the human family as a training
school for this larger family of humanity.

Hie infant approaches social living by the path-
way of the society of the family. We all go out
into life through widening circles, first the mother's
arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city,
the state, the nation, the world-life. Each circle
prepares for the nezt. The family is the child's
social order; its life is his training for the larger
life of nation and human brotherhood.

Just how men and women will hve in society
is determined princ^ally by the bent of their
characters in the social order of the family. Their
attitude to the world follows the attitude of the
family, especially of the parents. They interpret
the larger world by the lesser. The home is the >
great school of citizenship and social living.

All the moral and religious problems of the
family find a focus in the purpose of preparing
persons for social living. The family justifies its
cost to society in the contribution which it makes
in trained and motived lives. As a religious family
.its first duty is to prepare the ccnning gmeration

J b, Google

84 Religious EoucAnoN in xbe Fauly

to live in a religious society, in one which will
steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect
famify relations throu^ brotherhood and father-
hood. Its business is not to get children ready for
heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly.
Its aim is not alone children who wiU not tear
down the parents' reputation, but moi and women
who will build up the actual worth and beauty
of all lives.

The realization, in the family, of the purpose of
training youth to sodal living and service in the
religious spirit depends on two things: a spirit |.
and passion in the family for social justice and
order, and the direction of the activities of the ^
family toward training in sodal usefulness.

Only the social spirit can give birth to the social
spirit. True lovers of men, who set the values of
life and of the spirit first, who give their lives that
all men may have freedom and means to find more
abundant life, come out of the families where the
passion of human love bums high. The selfish
family, self-centered, caring not at all in any deep
sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract
the juice of life and let who will be nourished on
the rind, becomes ^ective to make the social
hi^wayman, the oppressor. From such a famify
comes he who breaks laws for his pocketbook and
impedes the enactment of laws lest human rights
should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who

J b, Google

DisECTEs Activity Sj

hates his brother man — unless that brother has
more than he has; the foe of the kingdcnn of good-
ness and peace and brotherhood.

And goodness is as contagious as badness. Chit
dren catch the spirit of social love and idealism
in the family. Where men and women are- de^Iy
concerned with all that makes the world better for
lives, better for babies and mothers, for workers,
and, above all, for the values of the spirit gained
through Idsure, opportunities, and higher incen-
tives; where the family is more concerned with
folks than with furniture; where habitually it
thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects
most of all worth seeking, worth investing in,
there children receive direction, habituation, and
motivation for the life of religion, the life that
binds them in glad love to the service of their
fellows, and makes them think of all their life
as the one great chance to serve, to make a
better world, and to bring God's great family
closer together here.

L R£n:K£NCE3 TOS Stody

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, pp. 14^50.

Revell, $1.35.
W. S. Atheam, The Chvrck School, pp. 85-ioj. Pilgrim

Press, ti. 00.
G. Johnson, Education by Plays and Games, Part I. Gioo

&Co., to.ga

J b, Google

86 RzLiGions Education in the Fajcxly

n. FUKTHEK ReADINO

E. D. AngcU, Play. Little, Brown & Co., $i. 50.

Fiaher, Gulick, et at., "Ethk&l Significance of Play,"

Materials for Rdiiious Education, pp. 197-315. ^li-

gious Education Association, So. 50.
Publications of the Flay Ground Association.

m. Meth(»is AMD Materials

PLAY

Forbush, Manual of Play. Jacobs, (i.oo.

A. Newton, Graded Gomes. Bames, $1 . 35.

Von Palm, Samy Day Pastimes. Dana Estes, $1 . 00.

JobBaon,Whm Mother Lets Us Bdp. Mo&at, Yard & Co.,

Caii6ad,WfiatShaUWeDoNow? Stokes, $1.50.
Beard, Jack of All Trades. Scribner, J3.00.
Beard, Things Worth Doing. Scribner, {3.00.
Bail^, Garden Malting. Macmillan, (i . 50.
Bailey (ed.). Something to Do (magazine). School Arts
Publishing Co.

IV. Topics tok Discussion
I. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should
we go in restraining activity ?

3. The relative advantages of work and leisure for
children. What of the value of chores to you; did you do
them? Describe any forms of children's service in the
home which have come under youi observation.

3. What forms of community service can be done by
children and by young people ?

4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early
home life.

5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the
potencfes for relipous character in the home.

J b, Google

CHAPTER Vm

THE HOME AS A SCHOOL-

The home U so mighty as a school because,
requiiing little time for formal instructioD, it enlists
its scholars so lai^ely in infonnal activities. It
trains foi life by living; it trains as an institution,
by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of
habits. If the home is to prepare for social living
it will be most of all and best of all by its organi-
zation and conduct as a social institution.

§ I. AN IDEAL COiarUNITY

For the purposes of society homes must be
social-training centers; they must be conducted as
communities if their members are to be fitted
for communal living. No boy is likely to be ready
for the responsibilities of free citizenship who has
spent his years in a home under an absolute mon-
archy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently
the case, in a condition of unmitigated anarchy.
A free society cannot consist of units not free.
The problems of parental discipline arise and
appear as persistently irritating and perplexing

1 This chapter is, with the publisher's kind penniB3i<m, taken,

with tundiy minor dianges, from the author's pamph^, Tkt

Bomt oj « Sduol jet Sodat Livini, publi^ed by the A

Baptist PubUcatioii Society in the " Soda] Service Seiieg."

8?

J b, Google

88 Religious Education m the Family

stumblii^-blocks in many a home ^mply because
that home is organized ahc^ther out of haimony
and relation vith the nonnal life in which it is set
Society environing the home gives its members the
habits of twentieth-century aubmomy, individual
initiative and req)onsibility, together with collect-
ive living and woriung, while the home oftoi se^s
to perpetuate thirteenth-century absolutism, serf-
dom, snd subjection. In social living outside the
home we learn to do the will of all; in the home
we attempt to compel children to do the will
of oue.

§ 2. COiaiUNITY INTERESTS

The home organized as a social community will
give to every member, according to his abiUty, a
share in its guidance and will expect from every
member the free contribution of his powers. Its
rules will be made by the will of all, and its affairs
governed, not by an executive board composed of
the parents, but by the free partidpatiou and
choice of alL The young will leam to choose by
choosing; wiU leam both how to rule and to be
ruled by a share in ruling.

To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is
de^ed for the home. Two plans at least are
possible: first, the "head of the home" may go
forth and purchase it without consulting anyone,
or after advising with the other "head"; or.

J b, Google

The Houe as a School 89

second, before a puichase is made, the wisdom of
such an addition to tlie furniture may be sug-
gested in the open council of the whole family and
the purchase discussed and determined by all.
Such councils, usually coming at or after the piin-
cq>al meal, freely participated in by all, give even
to the youngest a sense of the cost of a home, of the
care that goes into it, with, what is more important,
asenseofashareinthesecaresand costs; they culti-
vate habits of prudence, of consideration of a matter,
of steady judgments, of deference to the wishes and
wisdom of others. Of still greater importance is
another practical issue of such a plan — that every
member of the household has a new sense of pro-
prietorshq) with deepened responsibility. Listead
of thinking of any household possession as father's
or mother's, or even mine, it becomes oi^s. The
parents no longer need to say, "Children, do not
mar the furniture; it costs money to replace it."
The children know that already, and they have the
same pride in the home possessions and the same
desdre to preserve them as they have tn that which
is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results
from such a course so that, by thinking in terms
of common possession of the best things of life, there
is cultivated that respect for the rights of others
which is simply right social thinking.

The same plan could be pursued in relation to
almost every interest of the family — as the planning

J b, Google

90 REUGioira Education in the Fxiavs

of the annual vacation and outing, the holidays,
picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church
and religious exercises. Above all, in the last
mentioDed, this social spirit may be cultivated.
Tite father may cease to be the "hi^ priest" for
his family and become a worshiper along with the
other members. The effect will be that his chil-
dren are more likely to stay as worshipers with
him than if they gazed on him as on s(Hne lonely
elevation, unrelated to them in his religious exer-
cises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the
ccomnent and discussion, the story-telling, and all
that may make up the regular specific religious
activities of the family should be such that all may
have a share in them. Nothing could be finer,
diviner, and bring larger helpfulness for social
living than the attempt of the least little lisping
child to throw herself into the unified family act
of prayer, as when one little tot, unable to say the
Lord's Prayer, united in worsh^ at the time of
that act by saying, as reverently as possible,
"One, two, three, four, five," etc., up to ten.
The ability to coimt was her latest accomplish-
ment; counting to ten was bringiug the very best
thing she then had and, in the act of family worship,
offering her part to the Most High. A fine sense
of worship and a desire to be one with the others in
this united, communal service prtnnpted the par-
ticipation.

J b, Google

Toe HoicE as a School 91

§3. coHuoNiry sebvice
Conununity service may be cultivated in the
home. Here is the ideal social community, where
there are neither parasites nor paupers, where all
give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts
that the baby gives its full share of happiness and
cheer, and the aged their ofFering of consolation
and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be
with the lad and the girl who would rather play
than work. Usually this is because the habits of
co-operation in the life of this conununity have
been too long neglected. The small boy or giil had
no share in its work. Parents are too busy to think
through the matter of finding suitable duties for all.
It is so much easier to do things one's self, even
though the child misses the benefits of participa-
tion. More frequently the blame lies in the
fact that parents desire to shield children from
labor. Some would have them grow up without
knowing what they count as the degradation of
toU. But a boy who knows nothing of the
"chores" has missed half the joys of boyhood,
and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of him when he
goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what
one's station may be, there is a part to be played,
and one's piece of work to be done. The greatest
unkindness we can do our children is to train them
to hves that do not play their part. Tlie home is
our chance to train a man to harmonious usefulness

J b, Google

93 Reugioits Education in the FAiiny

In his vorid. Not only should the fam% trun to
social co-(q>eration and service, but it should train
to efficiency therein. Do not let your cluld's
duties become a farce; let them exact as much of
him as the world will exact also; that is, efficiency,
accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity.

§ 4. A SCHOOL 07 SOCIAL WNISTRY

Tlte family tmns lives for social ministry.
Tlte unsocial lives corns out of unsocial homes.
The home that exists for itself alone trains lives
that exist only for themselves; these are the homes
that throw the sand of selfishness into the wheels
of society; they ultimately efiect social suicide
through selfishness. The attitude and atmo^here
of the home are of first importance here. As we
think, so will our children act. If the home is to us
a place without responsibilities for the neighbor-
hood, without duties to neighbors, without social
roots, then it is a school for industrial, conmier-
dal, aod social greed and warfare. As we think
in our hearts and talk at our table, so are we
educating those who sit thereat.

If we would have our homes really efficient and
worthy agencies for education in social living, the
first thing to do is to seek the social atmosphere, to
cultivate all those influences which youi^ lives un-
consciously absorb. We all know that character
comes through environment in large measure, and

J b, Google

Tee Houe as a School 93

that the mental and spiritual environment is by far
the most potent. Here is something that affects
us more than the finest or poorest furniture and
that gives the real zest and flavor to any meal.
The choice of our own reading liters here, not
only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all
reading, as to whether it blinds with class preju-
dices, inten^es caste feeling, or atrophies social
sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensu-
ousness. The control of our own feelings and
judgment enters here. Do we sedulously cultivate
charity for others ? Do we stifle impatience, bitter-
ness, class feeling? Do we guide the conver-
sation of visitors and the family group so that
antisocial passions are subdued and a qnrit of
brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated ?
Here men and women have opportunity to give
evidence of a change of heart; here they need
that awakening to social consciousness which is a
new birth, a regeneration into the life of the Son
of Man who came to give his life.

By its active ministry the family is training for
social living. When a child carries a bowl of soup
to some sick or needy one, he learns a lesson never
to be f oi^tten. The memories of hours of planning
and preparation for some neighborly service — the
mating of bread, the packing of a box, the preserves
for the sick — shine out like sunshine spots along
childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps.

J b, Google

94 Reugioijs Education m the. Family

We are gradualty leamii^ that sodal duties are
not learned save through sodal deeds; that even
the most carefully prepared and perfectly peda-
gogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone.
The college student iises the laboratory method in
his sociology — though we know that sociology may
be as far from sodal living as the poles are apart.
The Social Service Assodatiou of the Young Men's
Christian Association has given up attempts to
teach social duty in favor of the plan of undertaking
^>edfic pieces of sodal activity. The home must
adopt the laboratory method. The important
thing is, not what the father or mother may
Q^tematically teach about the social duties of the
children, but what kinds of service, of ministry
and normal activity they may lead the children to;
that is, in what ways they may all together dis-
charge their functions in sodety.

§ 5. FAUnXBS AS COUMUNITY TACTOKS

Each family must dearly see its normal relations
to its commimity, to the sodal whole; first, as an
association of sodal beings having sodal duties,
obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the
ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor
in determining the value of the family to the
development of the community, fitting harmoni-
ously into the larger community, and rendering its
share of service.

J b, Google

The Houe as a School g$

The disorderly home spreads its immoral con-
tagion beyond its walls, out into the front yard,
out and up and down the street, and all through
the vill^e and dty. The City Beautiful cannot
come until we have the Home Beautiful. Training
each one to play his part in keeping the house in
order, picking up and setting in place his own tools
and playthings, preventing and removing litter,
scraps, and elements of disorder and discomfort,
acquiring habits of neatness based on social
motives — these things make more for the dty of
beauty and health than ail our lectures on dean
dties.

No family lives to itself. Young people need to
see dearly how their homes and their habits in the
home impinge on other homes and lives. Tliis is
impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute
degree in dty Hving. One can hardly imagine a
finer disdpline of grace than apartment Hving,
though one may well question whether it is not
morally and hygienically flying in the face of the
natural order. We may not have for a long time
munidpal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners,
limburger, and phonographs in dty apartments;
but if, unfortunatdy, we aje compelled to live in
these modem abominations, we ought to cultivate
a consdence that will not inflict our idiosyncra^es,
either in culinary aromas or in mu^cal taste, on our
neighbors. But there are matters greater than

J b, Google

96 Reugious Educahon m the Faiuly

these by which the home trains for social thought-
fulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home,
because the seeds never stay there. A howling dog,
a disease-breeding sty, a fly-harboring stable, must
be viewed, not from the point of the family's con-
venience, but from that of others' welfare.

§ 6. TKAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP

The family has a duty to train children for
Christian citizenship. No other institution can
take its place even here. Courses of lectures in
diurches and settlements effect excellent results,
and the study of civics from the moral and ideal
viewpoint should be encouraged in the schools; but
the home is the place where, after all, citizens
are trained and the value or menace of thdr
citizenship determined. If we stop long enough
to get a clear understanding of what we mean by
dtizensh^ this will be the more evident.

Citizenship is the condition of full conmiunal,
social living in a demoaacy. It is not a special
depiirtment or activity of a man's life which he
exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the
polls or through the political campaign; it is a
permanent condition, the condition of his social
living in a democracy. It seems to be worth while
to think of this enou^ to be quite sure of it, for
we have thought too long of citizenship as a special
aspect of one's life or as an occasional duty; we

J b, Google

Toe Houe as a School 97

have called for good ddzensh^ at times of election
and have been content with doimant citizenship
at other times; we have said that one was exer-
cising his citizenship when he voted, and have
forgotten that he was exercising it or abu^ng or
neglecting it as he walked the streets, talked with
his neighbors, or in any way lived the life that
has relations to other lives.

Matters of citizenship are dmply matteis of
social livii^, as social living expresses itself thiou^
what we call govemmoit; tHat is, through com-
munal, civic, national administration and regula-
tion. Citizenship is social control in action, not.
through political activity alone, but through all that
coQceme dvic and conunimal life. In view of this
it may be worth while to look a littie more closely
into the relations of family life to this matter of the
determination of the character of our citizenship.

The family is an agency for religious training in
citizeDship. Tlie family is the first, smallest, and
still the most common and potent social group. It
is the community in which^we nearly all learn com-
mimal living. At first it is a child's world, then
comes his nation, and then bis dty, but ere long
again the family is his own kingdom. Its ideals,
constantiy interpreted in action, determine our
ideals. Where the father is greedy, self-<:£ntered,
i^aiding the home as solely for his convenience as
his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic

J b, Google

98 Religious Education m the Family

bote, vhy Aould not the son at least tolerate
bosabm in his dty if he does not himself pattern
after his father on a wider scale and r^;ard the dty
or the state as his private boarding-house and the
treasury as his private manger ? Where the
mother is a petty para^te, what wonder the chil-
dren r^;ard with indifference, if not even with
admiration, the whole ^tem of dvic and social
barnacles, leeches, and other para^tes ?

The very organization of the home must prepare
for civic duty by laying upon all appropriate duties
and activities. It ou^t to be an ideal type of
community. But that can never be until we take
the training of parents seriously in hand; until we
cease to delegate the pedagogy of coiurtship, mar-
ri^e, and home-founding to the comic supplements
of the Sunday papers and to the joke columns.
Parents must themselves be trained for the busi<
ness of the organization of homes as educational
agencies.

The life and work of tiie home ought to train
religiously for citizenship, by cau^g each to bear
his due share of the burdens of all. Where the
child has been forced to do the indolent parent's
share, to support the slothful father, he can only
look forward to the time when he will be free to
support only himself, and have no other than
purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly im-
moral conception, and one squarely opposed to
good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has

J b, Google

The Hoke as a School

99

been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where
each has been taught scrupulously to avoid every
burden, they come into social living vith habits
set gainst bearing their share and toward making
others carry them. The indolent parent makes
the tax-dodging citizen, as the indulgent parent
often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes
a tax on the public.

The ideals of the family determine the needs of
citizens. Its conversation, its reading, its customs,
set the standard of sodal needs. Wbere the
father laughs at the smartness of the artful do(%e
in politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel
and toys that she knows others have bought with
corrupt cash, where the conversation at the meal-
table steadily, though often unconsdoudy, lifts
vp and lauds those who are out after the "real
thing," the eager ears about that board drink it
in and childish hearts resolve what they will do
when they have a chance. Where no voice speaks
for h^ things, where no tide of indignation
against wrong sweeps into language, where the
children never feel that the parents have great
moral convictions — ^where no vision is, the people
perish.

Yet to realize this dvic responsibility of the
home would be, in the greater number of instances,
to remedy it. In those other instances where there
are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience

J b, Google

loo RsuGioirs Education m the Family

is dead, there rests upon the state, upon society,
for its own salce, the responability to train those
chUdren so that, at any rate, th^ will not per-
petuate homes of this type. We may do very
much by the stimulation and direction of parents.
Hen need but to be reminded of their duty to
make it a part of their business to train their
children in social duty.

L RsFEfixHCxs roK Stcdt
Ta^r, Seiigum in Social Action, chaps, vii, viii. Dodd,

Mead&Co., ti'3s.
E. J. W^ The Socitd Center, chap. V, Appleton, $1.50.

n. Further Reading
Lofthouse, Ethics in the Pamiiy. Hodder & Stou^toD,
ti-So.

m. Topics 70r Discussion
I. What is the ^>eci(il social importance of the family ?
3. How do chikken acquire thcii social ideals from the
home?

3. What are the advantages which the home has as a
schocd?

4. How do homes train for the les^wnsibilities of dtizen-
sbip?

5. Can you describe any plans of community councils
in the home ?

6. How would you promote community service in the
f&mity?

3. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives
growing in the home?

J b, Google

CHAPTER IX
THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE
The modem child is likely to miss one of the
great character enrichings which his parrats had,
in that he is in danger of groving up entirely
ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought
in historic and dignified hymns. The great
hymns have done more for religious thought and
character than all the sermons that have ever
been preached. Even in the adult of the purely
intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm, mu^c,
repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a
more permanent part of the mental substratum
than any formal logical presentation of ideas.
How much more will tliis be the case with the
child who feeb more than he reasons, who delights
in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a world of
imageryl

§ I. SONG AND STOSY

Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic
form; plays, school-life, love of country, friend-
ships, all take or are given metric expression.
So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural
place. The child ^gs as he plays, sings as he
works, ^ngs in school, and, as long as life and

J b, Google

■•'•fab: >Kiii(jicl)gs' Location m the Faiuly

memory hold, these words of song will be his pos-
ses^<Hk; in declining ye&rs, when eyes are failing
and other interests may wane, fragments of child-
hood's songs and youth's poems will sii^ them-
selves over in his memory; while in the years
between how often will some stanza or line ^ling
into the focus of thoi^t just at the moment when
it can give brave and helpful direction I

Those years of facile memorization should be
like the ant's summer, a period of steady storing in
mind of the world's treasures of thought. No man
ever had too many good and beautiful thoi^ts
in his memory. Few have failed to recall with
gratitude some apparently lot^-foi^otten word of
cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood.
He special virtue of the hymn, among all poetic
forms of great thoughts, is that memory is strength-
ened by the music and the thought further idealized
by it, while frequent repetition fixes it the more
firmly and repetition in congregational song adds
Vthe high value of emotional association. «/*

But what kinds of memory treasures are being
given to the modem child in the realm of religion ?
In by far the greater number of instances in the
United States neither church nor Simday school
nor home brings to him any knowledge of the great
hymns of reUgion.' In the churches that use

'One of the best collections of suitable cdigious sMigs ii
Worship and Seng. PilgiiiB Press, $0.40.

J b, Google

The Child's Ideal Life 103

these hymns the child is frequentiy not in the
Sunday services; he is in the children's service or
the school, while in the majority of churches a
weak-minded endeavor for amusement has substi-
tuted meaningless rag-time trivialities tor rich and
digniEed hymns. Perhaps the custom of encour-
aging congregations to jig, dance, cavort, or drone
through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs
is only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate
one; it tends to divorce worship and thought, to
make worship a matter of purely superficial
emotions, and to form the habit of expressing
religion, the highest experience of life, in language,
often irreverent and almost always trivial, slangy,
or ridiculous. It is an insult to the inteUigence of
children to ask them to sang

We're pilgtims o'er the sands of time,
We have not long to stay,

The lifeboat soon is coming.
To carry the pi^criins away.

It is the duty of parents to know what their
children are learning in the Sunday school. Not
only are they often missing the opportunity to lay
up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts;
they are acquiring crude, mistaken, misleading
theological concepts in the hideous, revolting
figures ot " evai^elistic songs"; they are storing
their minds with atrocities in English and in fig-
ures of speech; they are acquiring the habits of

J b, Google

I04 KxuGioira Educaiion m the Faioly

seDtimentality in rdigioD and inhibiting the finer,
higher feelings. They are blunting their higher
feelings by repeating incongruous and natiseating
^ures of being "washed in blood," or they are
carelessly singing sentiments they do not under-
stand.

What can the family do about this ? It ought
to assert its rights in the church. It ought to
protest and rebel against the debauching of mind
and the degrading of religion (all for the sake of
selling trashy books at $25 per hundred). A
parent would do better to keep his child from
church and Sunday school than to permit his mind
to be filled with the sanguinary pictures of God, the
mediaeval theology of the modem songbook, and
its offenses agunst truth in thought and form.
But the family can work positively and more
effectively by providing good hymns for children
in the home.

§ 3. TEAINING m SONG

Almost without exception all children will sing
if encouraged early in life. In the family group
one has only to start a familiar song and soon all
will be singing. It is just as natural to sing
"Abide with Me" when the family sits together
in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama
Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward,
Christian Soldiers " just as much as in the northern

J b, Google

The Child's Ideal Z<ife 105

states they like "Marching through Georgia."
If they do not know the hymns the home is the
best of all places in which to learn them.

A large section of real family life is missing in
families that do not sing together. A home with-
out song lacks one of the strongest bonds of
family unity, and the after-years will be dqirived
of a memory dear indeed to many others. Days
often come when the wheels of family life seem to
develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw
the members far apart, but the evening song
brings them together. The unity of action, of
feeling, the development of emotions above the
day's irritation and strife, all help to new joys in
family living.

We may well think of the fine songs and the
great hymns together. There is no fixed wall
between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and
"TTie Son of God Goes Forth," nor between "My
Old Kentucky Hcmie" and "Jerusalem the Golden."
The modem home has the musical instruments to
lead in song — though they are not always essen-
tial — and lacks only the planning and forethought
to devebp the joys of song. It must provide the
thought that applies the sunpler forms of mu^
cal e:q)ression to the sweetening and enriching
of life.

Let no one say, "My family is not musical."
lliat simply means that your family does not take

J b, Google

io6 Reuoious Education in toe FAiCLy

time for music and soog. Build on the training in
patriotic and folk-songs given in the sdiools; sing
these same songs over in the hcmie and then asso-
ciate with the best of them the best of the hymns.
Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of
feeling in music together, the hymns and the
songs, to make religi<Mi mean beauty and devotion
and to make the finer sentiments of life truly
religious.

This costs time and thought Someone must plan
that the books of songs and hymns are provided,
that the opportunity is given, and that wise,
unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready
several copies of the book containing the best
hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in
advance, selecting the songs, or at least the first
one. Then at the ri^t time simpfy begin to play
that song and you will scarcely need to invite the
children to sing with you.

Should anyone doubt whether children will
enjoy singing good hymns, he may purchase a
few records for the phonograph, for example, "O
Come All Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angeb
Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy, Holy, Holy,"
"Abide with Me." These will suit those of from
ten upward; younger children will enjoy "Can a
Little Child Like Me," "Brightly Gleams Our
Banner," "Jesus Loves Me," "I Think When I
Read That Sweet Story," and "For the Beauty of

J b, Google

The Child's Ideal Life 107

the Earth," though they will join gladly in the
other hysms. Or, instead of using the phonograph,
sit down quietly at the piano and play these hynmsy' '
with just enough emphasis for the children to catch
the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at
the piano singing with you."

§3. piATf Acnvmt

The child is a playing animal. Play b not an
invention of the devil, designed to plague parents
and to lead children to waste their time. It is
nature's best method of education, for when a
child plays he is simply reaching forward in his
activities to the realization of his ideals. Play is
idealized e^ieriences. There is always a sig-
nificance of wider and maturer experience in chil-
dren's play. Therefore the family must find
sp&cc and time and adaptation of organization to
the child's need of spontaneous, free activity in
play.

The special religious value of play lies in the
fact that the child in his games is experimenting
with life, learning its lessons; especially is he
learning the art of living with other lives. It is our
religious duty to see to it that our children become

< An exccQent plan is worked out in Tkt Children't E»ur of
Story and Song by MoSat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday Sdigol
Sode^, in which duLdmi's stories ore ^ven and foUowiug tkem
suitable songs and hynuis with the music for each.

J b, Google

loS RxuGiotrs Educatioh in the Faiuly

osed to living in society by playing in social groups.
Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the lonely
child standing in the comer of the playground,
able only to watch the games, because parental
prohibition has already made him a solitary and
unsocial creature.

The educational potencies of play are so great
that we dare not leave its activities to chance.
Parents must study the power of play, its psycho-
Ic^cal and educational values, in order to direct
its activity to the highest good.

The adequate care of a child's play-life will
involve, in addition to the trained intelligence of
the parents, provision for space in the house
and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our
peace and our 'pleasure to the chUd's play at times,
a reasonable though not necessarily expensive
provision of play materials, attention to the char-
acter of the plays and playmates. Ihe home will
not lose its hannony and beauty if it is filled with
playing children. Its function has to do with
their development rather than with the preserva-
tion of chairs.

I. Retesences eok Study

H. F, Cope, Hymns You Ought to Know, Introduction.
Revell, li-so.

W. F. Pratt, idvHcai Ministries. Revell, $i.oo.

R.W.llalbaLt,Tke Church and HtrChHdrM,cii&p.x. Re-
vell, (i.oo.

J b, Google

The Child's Ideal Life ioq

n. FOSTSEE RSADINO

For a list of great hymns see Hymns You Ought to Kium,
edited by Henry F. Cope, and moitioned above. It
contains one hundred standard hymns witli a brief
account of each hymn and of each author.

E. D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," ReUgious Educatitm,
December, 1911, VII, 509.

See report of the Conunisaon on Worship in tlie Suitday
Scbocd, in ReHpous Education, Octotwr, 1914.

Read e^iedalfy the cliapter on this subject in H. H. Harts-
borne, Worship HI the Sunday School. Columbia
Universty, (1.35.

m. Topics tor Discitssioii
I. What special advantages do songs and hymns have

in their pedagogical power ?

a. What hymns do you rem^nber from childhood?

In what way are these hymns valuable to you ?

3-. What changes would you like to see in the hymns

the children learn today ?

4. What difficulties do you find in training chUdren to
ang in the home?

5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What
games have special educational value? What games
have religious significance or vahie? Give reastms far
your opinions.

J b, Google

CHAPTER X
STORIES AND READING
If we would teach religion to our cliildieii we
must adopt the method of Jesus; that of telling
stories. The story has the advantage, first, of its
natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner
of its presentation of the truth, together with the
fact that that truth is embodied in a statement of
life and experience. Besides, stoiy-telling to any
person of active interests is one of the ea^est and
most stimulating methods of teaching.

§ I. STOKV-TELLtNG

So much has abeady been written on the art
of telling stories that ooiy a few suggestions are
needed here. First, understand why you tell the
story. Normally a double motive enters in,
namely, the conveyance of truth in life, at the same
rime affording real pleasure to the listeners.
Either motive alone will be inadequate. You can-
not convey the truth without the desire to give
pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure worth
while without the truth. But this is the place to
insist that the truth which you desire to convey
must find its way to the conviction of the child
through the story and not through any moral or
preface or particular statement which you may

J b, Google

Stosies akd Reading hi

make. The moial or lesson must be clear to you
but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter
and maimer of the story.

Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this
most effective method of instruction. It will
cost the reservation of a certain amount of time
both for acquiring the story and for relating it.
It will require careful thought and planning,
esfpedally to be sure that the story is told in sym-
pathy with the child's world. People who are too
busy to tell their children stories are, perhaps fortu-
nately, coming to realize that they are too busy to
have children. If it looks like a waste of time to
turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from
twenty to thirty minutes, we shall need to revise
our estimates of the value of child-character.
Nor must we shrink from the investment of time
in preparation for the narration of the story; if
it is worth telling, it is worth telling well.

Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories.
This may be preserved in a notebook. One parent
used a card-index for this purpose. There are a
few books published containing good collections."

'Laun E. Ctagin, Ktndtrpultn Biblt Stories. Fifty-^
of the Old Testament stories. Theie is also a companion volume
of Nev Testament stories.

James Baldwin, Old Stories aj tkt East. Flesh and interesting
vetdoos of the familial Old Testament stories.

Kate Douglas Wiggin, Tkt Story Hour. Good stories and a
nggtative introduction on stoiy-telling.

Eolfo Sundrtd Slorittfer the LUtte People, by various authors.

J b, Google-

113 Religious Education in toe Familt

You vill find most valuable your own little book
in which you have noted down the fugitive stories
and ^ort selections which ate to be found in general
literature.*

Fourthly, do not tell a stoiy so as to close the
child's interest in the narrative. Stories ought to
lead to inquiry and further reading in the book or
other source from which th^ have been drawn;
indeed, story-telling b one excellent method of
quickening an interest in reading.

Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories
to one another. Oftai the whole family will be
oitertained and helped by the explanation which
a small child will give of the story he has learned
by hearing it repeated a few times from bis
mother's lips.

Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the
quiet hour is the best of all methods to Stimulate
thdr interest in the Bible itself. It is much better
to tell the story in your own language than to read
it either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one
reason, you will never tell it twice the same way,
and children will watch with interest changes in
the narration. As soon as they can read, secure

*AUst^G<>odSU>ne$toTeUtoChiidrttnimdeTTvattY«anof
At», C&nugie Libmy of Pittabui;^, $0.05. Thei« are refo^
ences to books in idiidi the stories may be found, induding 15
Bible stoiiea, 16 fables, 14 mytlu, 14 Chiistmaa stories, 7 Tluuiiw-
giving stories, etc.

J b, Google

Stobies and Readino 113

some of the simple Bible narratives and put these
in their hands.*

§ 2. BOOKS AKB H£ADINO

A home without books is like a house with only
one window; it can look out in only one directian,
in that of the present. It knows only a limited
world; its children have a short measure of the joy
of Ufe, they can know here only those whom they
see today, their friends must be few, their world
narrow and confined.

If the books are not in your home the children
will find them elsewhere. Unless the school kills
the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the
young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal
realm of books. As they grow up, the book takes
the place of the story. The printed page is the
child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead
to other times and lands, routes that lead to other
people and into their hearts and minds. The
child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in
lives before him, but he begins to discriminate and
to analyze it onfy through reading; souls are
revealed where the purpose of the writer is that
the reader may see the springs of action in the
character portrayed. Fiction, biography, travel,

I Such as O'Shea, Old World Wonder SUiries; Georse Hodgea,
Tkt Garden of Eden; Cragin, Old TeHavunt Stories; Muy
Stewart, TeU Ue a True Story.

J b, Google

114 Religioits Education in the Family

and advcDtuie soon pass from the merdy exterior
happenings to tke discovery of meanings in
character.

§3. DANGEKS OF BEADING

Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment,
while the story requires two, there is less control
over reading. There is only one way to be sure
that children are not devouring vicious books and
that is to make sure that th^ have an ample supply
of healthful, he^ful ones. This is especially neces-
sary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. The
tendency is for reading to take the facile decline
from book to cheap magazine, from magazine to
newspaper, and from the newspaper to skimming
the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper
papers ^>peaJ to the lowest intelligence and strike
at the line of least moral and mental resistance.
Reading enriches the life but little and may im-
poverish it greatly unless there b developed the
habit of drawing on the world's great treasures of
thought and feeling. Open windows in your
children's souls by giving them books; keep them
open by encouraging the reading habit. Great
souls wait for them, willing to converse and beoone
their friends and teachers if they will but take
down these books from the shelves and open them
with an eager mind.

J b, Google

SiosiES AKD Reading 115

§4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE

What can be done to quicken a love of good read-
ing in children? Recognize that not all children
develop this appetite at the same age, that girls
read more than boys, that boys ttsually have a
period of decline in reading interest from seven-
teen to twenty-one or even later. But everything
really depends on whether we ourselves love good
books and keep them on hand. One of the life-
centers of a family should be the bookshelf, while
the picture of the evening lamp and the reading
group will constitute oue of its best memories.
Where books are at hand and where th^ are used
daily, the children need little urging to read. Now
this does not mean that yards of choice editions
make a book-loving family. There is a difference
between bindings and books. It means books
known and loved, familiar friends for daily con-
verse, books on handy shelves and fit to be used as
common food.

Do you know what your children read t Do you
watch as carefully the food of mind and spirit
as you do that of the body? Do you show an
interest in the books they plan to draw from
the public library? Can you guide them intelli-
gently when they ask for su^estions of interesting
books? Do you know the healthful, suitable
ones?

J b, Google

Il6 ReUGIOUS IfouCATION IN THE FaHILY
§ 5. FBOHOnON Ot THE SEADINO INTEKEST

Tbt Sunday school might aid greatly in pm-
moting the habit of selecting and reading good
books. Children often come home from day school
clamoring for some book which the teacher has
recommended as interesting and valuable. The
Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would
also cany weight. In evoy church, whether there
exists a Sunday-school library or not, there ought
to be a library or book committee which would
watch for the right reading for the different grades
and would cause the titles of good books to be
pla<^ on a bulletin board. Further, such a
committee might very well place a copy of the
book selected in the teacher's hand in order that
the teacher might call the attention of the class
direct^ to it. Of course the range of selection
should be as wide as the world of books and should
include fiction, romance^ song, and stoiy.' Far^its
could do the same sort of thing. Why not talk
up the best books we remember? As to those
old-time books, we need to realize that tastes
change. Perhaps they owed much of their interest
to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life.
Therefore we must commend the new books, those
that belong to the children's own days, too. This
can be done, provided we really know the books,

' The H. W. WilsoD Co., White Pl^ns, New Yoit, pubMua
a Ust of CUidren'i Books jor Sunday^ckool Libranes.

J b, Google

Stobies and Reading 117

not by saying, "We should like you to read
Sandford and Merlon," but rather, "There is a
capital story in Captains Courageous; have any
of you read it?" Leave the matter there, or, at
most, go <mly far enough to stimulate interest.

I. RZZEREHCES 70K StDDY

St. John, Stories and Story TtUmg, chaps, i-v. Eaton &

Mains, %a. 50.
Foibuah, The Coming Generation, chap. viii. Appleton,

*i.5o.
Winchester, "Good and Bod Books in the Home," in The

Bible in Practical Life, p. 38. Religious Education

Association, (3.50.

n. FUSTHEK RzADmO

Partridge, Slory Telling in School and Home. Stuigis &

Walton, $1. as.
H.W.'Maine,Baokt and Culture. I>odd,Mead&Co.,$i.as.

m. Methods and Hatekuls

ox STOBY-XELUHQ

E. p. St. John, Stories and Story Tdling. Eaton & Mains,

to. so.
Wyche, Some Great Stories and Boa to Tell Them. Newson

&Co., Ii.oo.
L. S. Houghton, Telling Bible Slories. Scribner, $1.25.
Biyant, Hew to TeU Stories jor Children. Houghton Mi£Bin

Co., $1.00.
E. M. and G. E. Partridge, Story Telling in School and

Borne. StuTgis & Walton, I1.35.

J b, Google

itS Reugious Education in the Family

DtXXCIINa CHIIDKEN'S KEADINC in the HOKE

i/tacy,ACkadren'sGuidetoIUMlmg. Baker & Taylor Co.,

*i. as-
Field, Finger Posts to Ckiidren's Reading. McCluig, ti . oo.
Arnold, A Mather's List of Books for Children. McCluig,

$1.00.

For a short practical list see the diffeieiit lists classified
uudei Sunday-School Departments in W. S. At&eain,
The Church School, particularly p^. 54, 83, 118, 169.
FUgrim Fiess, $i.do.

IV. Topics ton Discussiot)
I. Do you lemember any stories which eq>ecially

in^ressed you as a child? What were their qualities?

What were the qualities of theit narration ?

3. What are youi difficulties in story-telling to children 7

3. Is the habit of reading books passing among chil-
dren ? If so, what are the reasons ?

4. What leqmnsibility has the public library toward the
child's selection of books ? toward promoting book reading ?

5. How many families co-<^>erate with the libraiy?

6. How might the church co-operate ?

7. Does the reading of newsp^>ers by children afiect
thdr general habits of reading ? In what ways ?

8. What personal difference b there, if any, between the
effect of a borrowed book and of one the child owns ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XI

THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME
If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious
education in the family as that of the development
of the lives of religious persons, the place and value
of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a
means of developing and directing lives. This will
be quite different from a perfunctory use because
our fathers used it or a use under the compulsion
of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us,
some visitation of an offended deity.

§ X. THE child's need

Children need the Bible as a part ol their sodal
heritage. Just as they get a larger life, inspired
and stimulated by the realization of their con-
nectioh with the past of their family and their
country, so the Bible brings them into connection
with the religious history of the race. General
history brings heroic forefathers into the stream
of consciousness; we feel the push of their lives.
So the Bible reveals the stream farther back and
makes us part of the process of life in unity with
great characters and great movements.

The child has a right to the Bible as his literary
heritage. Here in the Bible is the precipitation of

J b, Google

lao RixiGions Education m the Faiuly

the ideals of a pet^le unique in the place which
religion held in their lives. Here is a literature
which is the soorcs of much of the best in the lan-
guage and reading of the child's life. Its phrases
are beautiful and convenient embodiments of reli-
gious ideals; they wUl have a steadily developing
richness of meaning as life opens out to the child.'

§ 2. DIFFICULTIES

The difficulties in the way of the use of the
Bible in the home are: the crowded programs, or a
lack of time due to the absence of any program for
the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the ^>ecia]
reading of this book; the decay of the custom of
reading aloud; parental ignorance of the Bible'
and especially of its beauties for the young; and
the excessive amount of task-reading frequently
required by the schools. The Sunday school also
sranetimes offends in this respect by overemphasis
on academic tasks for home work.

S 3. METHODS

first, let parents use the Bible themselves.
Use the books as you wish children to use them.
This will be the longest step you can take toward
the solution of the problon.

Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When chil-
dren have an aversion to the Bible it is due usually

■ Sec M. J. C. Foster, Tie JfoiAef (fa Ciftf* Ffrri eiWe Teoefcy

J b, Google

Use 07 THE Bible m the Home 121

to two causes: the peculiar place and use of the
book which makes it a thing apart fiom life, and
often an object of dread; and the practice of using
it as a task-book, to be opened only in order to pre-
pare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years
to overcome the aversion set up against English
literature by its analytical study in the schools,
so that the child becomes a man before he volun-
tarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and
essayists, in the same manner we have succeeded
in making the Bible undesirable to youth. If you
read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which
would be appropriate if this was a new book not
bound m leather. Read it for pleasure as one
would read a literary masterpiece — not because
opinion might frown on you if you had not read
the classic. Does someone object that that would
be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular
writings? You cannot degrade a Uterature; it
makes its own level and our labels do not affect it.
Certain it is that a pious tone of voice will not pro-
tect the Bible from the secular level. But to use
it unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those
who hear us.

Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children
enjoy story-telling and listening to reading. Many
parents practice the children's hour, some period
in the day when they will, alone with the children,
read and talk with them. Let the Bible story be

JbyGOOglC

132 Religious Eddcation in the FAioLy

the reward of a good day, samething promised as an
incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not
alone in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages,
in the poetic fights of Isaiah and the beautiful
imag^y of the Psabns. To them it is natural and
pleasant to think of the hills that skii^>ed and the
stars that sang and the trees that gave forth praise.
They know the song of nature and are hap^ to
find it put into words.

Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How
many times a day do questions of conduct arise in
the family! How often do children ask what is
right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a
book rich in precept and example on at least many
of the questions. There are pictures of actual lives
meeting real temptations; there are the epigram-
matic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of
Jesus. Call attention to them, not as settling the
question out of hand, but as testimony to the
point. Accustom children to getting the light of
the Bible on their lives, r^n^nbering that this
book is a light and not a fence nor a code of
laws.

Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does
not conflict with the plea for its use naturally, for
worship should be as natural as any of the social
pleasures of the family. Here select those passages
for reading which count most for the spirit of wor-
ship. It is a good plan to read a short passage,

J b, Google

Use 07 iHE Bible in ihe Home idj

suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children
learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be
sure that all the passages read or recited are short
It will often be wise to preface the reading with
a brief account of its original circumstances, so
that all may hear the words as the actual uttO'-
auces of a real man living in real life.

Sixthly, provide material which helps to make
the Bible interesting, and which helps children to
see its pictures through the eyes of geography and
history/

Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible
at all times for all. See that as soon as the child
can read he has his own Bible, that it is in large,
readable type, as much like any other book as
possible. It is no evidence of grace to ruin the
eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If possible, also
provide s^arate books of the Bible, in modem
literary form and some in the idiom of out day.'

§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS

It is doubtful whether good comes from the use
of the Bible as a riddle-book, nor do the "Bible
games" tend to develop a natural appreciation of

'iia/iit, B&lt Manners and Customs.
Oumberiin, Inlreduetum It the BthUJor Teachers 0/ CkiUren.
WoTMstCT, On Boly Ground, a vols,

■For example, Uoulton, Modem Reader's Bible. The new
Jewish lend^Dgs of Old Testamoit books aie good, especially
tlWPulma.

J b, Google

.134 Reugious Education m the Faioly

the book. Iliere is no new light but rather a con-
fusing shadow thrown on the character of Joseph
by the foolish conundrum concerning Pharaoh
m airing a nilcT out of tiim. Sending a child to the
Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest,
the middle one, etc., trains him to regard it as an
odd kind of book, to think of it as a dictionary, and
to use it less.

We assume too readily that a knowledge of the
separate details of biblical information, such as
the date of the Flood, the age of Methuselah, the
names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the
books of the two Testammts, is the desired end.
But one might know all these things and many
more and be not one whit the better. For the
child surely the desirable end is that he may feel
deeply the attractiveness of the character of
Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What
a fine man; I want to be hke him." Be sure
the persons are real, that you see them living
their Uves in their times, just as you live your
life now.

I. RSTEBENCES F02 SXCDX

T. G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in Boy
Training, pp. 117-40, Association Press, $0.75.

W. T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," Religious Education,
December, igia, p. 4S6.

G. Ho(^;es, Training oj Children in Religion, chap. z.
Appleton, $1.50.

J b, Google

Use of ihe E;ible m the Home 125

n. FusTHXx Reading
The Bible in Practical Life. Reli^us EducaUon Assoda-

tioD. Numerous references to the use of the Bible in

the home in this volume.
Fatteisim Dubois, The Natural Way, sec. iv. Revell, $1 . 35.

m. Methods and Materuis
" Passages of Bible foi Memorization," SdigioM Education,

August, 1906.
Louise 5. Houghton, Telling Bible Stories. Scribner, $1 . 35.
Johnson, TAe ATorfo/jw iSiWi!. Baker & Taylor Co., |i. 50.
HaU and Wood, The Bi3de Story, 5 vols. Emg, $a.oo by

subscTQ>tion.
CourtDty, The lAlerary Man's Bible. Crowell, ^i. 35.
Hie above are but a few of the many collectiooa of biblical

materiaL

IV. Topics for Discussioh
t. What are the conditions which seen to make the
reading of the Bible different from other reading? Is
there a sense of unreality about it as a book? What are
the causes ? '

3. Try the eq»eriment of reading the story of Jos^h at
one sitting. Try to retell this to children.

3. What biblical material stands out in youi memoiy 6f
duldbood? In what degree is this due to the art of the
story-teller or the reader ? to the character of the material 7

J b, Google

CHAPTER Xn
FAMILY WORSHIP
Family worshq) has declined until, at least in
the United States, the percentage of families
piactidng daily worship in the home is so soiall
as to be negligible. If this meant that a general
institution of religion had passed out of existence
the fact would be highly significant But it is well
to remember that family worship has never been
a general institution. We have generalized the
picture of the "Cotter's Saturday Night" so elo-
quentfy drawn by Bums; it has been ^pHed to
every night and to every fireside. Daily family
worsh^ was observed in practically all the Puritan
homes of New England; but there is no evidence
for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of
this country or in other parts of the world, save
perhaps in sections of Scotland. True, there were
many families which observed the custom ; but there
were also many families of church members and
doubtless of truly religious people m which family
worshq) as a regular institution was unknown.
This has been especially true m the type of family
life which has developed imder modem social con-
ditions. Further, even so simple an exercise as
grace at meals has not always been a general custom.

J b, Google

FAjnLit WoBsmp 127

§ I. PAST cnsTous
But the fact today is that family worship is so
rare as to be counted phenomenal wherever foimd.
, The instances, though not general, were common
a generation ago. Many are living to whom family
worship afforded the largest part of their conscious
and formal religious education. Following the
morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal,
the family waited while the father, or the mother
in his absence, read a portion of the Scriptures and
offered prayer. In other families the act of wor-
ship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps
participated in by the older members only, the
younger children having repeated their prayers at
bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred
associations gather about the memories of these
occasions: the sense of reverence, the feeling that
the home was a sacred place, the impression of
noble words and elevating tbou^ts, the reflex
influence of the prayer that committed all to the
keeping and guidance of God.*

§ 2. WHY FAMttV WORSHIP ?

Parents need to see the values in family worship.

We have been insisting on the primary importance

of the religious interpretation of the family as an

'Foi a study of children's worship sec H. H. Haitshorue,
WeriUp in the Sunday School; "Report of Commission on
Giaded Wonhip," Relipout Education, October, 1914.

J b, Google

138 Religious ^tjcahon in the Fauly

institution, on the power of the religious motive,
and the atmos[^ere of religion. But idieiever
there is a truly religious motive and a permanent
religious atmosphere these will find definite e^res-
^n in acts easily lecogmzed as religious. Love
is the motive and atmosphere ol the true lunne, but
love blossoms into words and bears fruit in a thou-
sand deeds. The life of love dies without reality
in act. Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts.
So is it with religion in the home; it must not only
be real in its sincerity, it must be realized, must
pass over into conduct and action, as suggested
above in chaps, vii and viii. And it must do this
in ways so sharply defined and readily recognized
as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True,
all acts may be religious and thus full of worship —
this is most important of all — but worship e:q)ressly
unites all such acts in a spirit of loyalty and ae-
ration.

Worship is a necessity for the sake of the idea!
unity of the family life. Just as the individual
must not only feel the religious emotion but must
also do the thing called for, so must this united
personality of the family give expression to its
faith and aspiration, its motives and emotions, in
such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can
together put the inner life into the outer form.
The social value of family worsh^ is the strongest
reason for its maintenance. It is the united act

.b, Google

Fauly Worship 129

of the family group, the one in which group con-
sciousness is expressly directed to the highest
possible sums. Every period of worship brings the
family into unity at an ideal level.

The expression of religion in definite forms is
necessary for children, too, as furnishing a means
by which they can manifest their feeling of the
higher meaning of family life. The reality of that
feeling is stimulated in the daily, common life of
the ri^t family; the hour of wor^iq) is one out of
many definite forms of its concrete expression. It
is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling
and aspiration into an act of worship and praise
toward God, the Father of all families. It is evi-
dent there carmot be true worship in the family
that is irreligious in its essential qualities, in its
character, in its ideals and atmosphere.

§ 3. ADVANTAGES

The period of worship is a necessity in inter-
preting to all the spirit and meaning of a reUgious
family. It objectifies the inner Ufe. It makes
definite, taa^ble, and easily remembered the
general impres^ons of religion. It precipitates the
atmosphere of refigion into definiteness. In the
chemical laboratory of a university there is usually
a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one
e^iects to become a chemical engineer by absorb-
ing that almosphere, nor even to attain a simple

J b, Google

130 Religious Edxtcahom m the Fauily

working knowledge by merely general impressions.
Definiteness aids in gathering up our knowledge,
our impressions.

The reading of the Bible in the home will give,
when the passages are wisely chosen, forms of
language into which the often chaotic but never-
theless valuable and potential emotions of youth
fall as into a beautiful mold; they become remem-
bered forms of beauty thereafter.

Family worsh^ furnishes opportunity for direct
religious instruction. When the home life has its
regular institution, as regular as meals and play,
the formality, the apparent abnormality of con-
versation about religion, is absent. Children
e^KCt and look forward to the period when the
family will lay other things aside to think on the
eternal values. Their questions in the breathing-
space that always ought to follow worship become
perfectiy natural and sincere.

Family worship lifts the whole level of family
life. Ideally conceived, it simply means the family
unity consciously coming into its highest place.
Ciiildren may not understand all the reading nor
enter into the motives for all parts of the petition,
but tiiey do feel that this moment is the one in
which the family enters a holy place. They feel
that God is real and that their family life is a part
of his whole care and of his life. One short period
of natural reverence sends light and calm all

J b, Google

Family Worship 131

thiou^ the day. Where the home is the place
where true prayer is offered, the family is the group
which meets in an act of worship; here and into
this group there cannot easily enter strife, bicker-
ings, or baseness. One short period, five minutes
or even less, of quietness, of united turning toward
the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer atmos-
phere to the home.

What our commimity life mi^t be lite without
the churches, faulty or incompetent as we may
iknow some of them to be, what that life would
lose and miss without them is precisely, and per-
haps in larger degree, what the family life misses
without its own institution of regular devotion
and wor^p.

§ 4. THE DIFFICTTLTIES

We can always afford to do that which is most
worth while doing; our essential difficulty is to shake
off the delusion of the lesser values, the lower
prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the
characters of our children, the gaia we can all
make m the eternal values of the spuit, in love and
joy and truth and goodness, is the gain most worth
while. We tend to set the making of a living
before the making of lives. We need to see the
development of the powers of personality, the
riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant
purpose of all being. Once grasp that, and hold

J b, Google

133 Religious Education in the Family

to it, and we shall not allow lesser consideratloiis,
such as the pressure of business, the desire for gain,
for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before
this first and hi^est good; we shall make time
for definite conscious religion in the life of the

f amily ,'

§ 5. TYPES OP WORSHIP

Hiere are three simple forms which worship
takes in the family: first, grace offered at the meals;
secondly, the prayers of duldren on retiring and,
occasionally, on rising; third^, the daily gather-
ing of the family for an act of the ^irit. The state-
ment of the three forms reads so as to give them
a formal character, but the most important point
to remember is that wherever they are true acts of
worship they are formal only in that they occur
at definite, determined times and places. Tlte
acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to
institute their observance will not secure religious
feeling and life in the home. Hiese three observ-
ances have arisen because at these times there is
the best and most natural opportunity for the
expression of aspiration, desire, and feeling.

'"Patmta who give up such a practice as family pnyta
mainly tKcouse they know of many other peopltj who have done
the same are just as much the slaves of public o;»uiou and
(gnorant cant as the narrowest Lowknder who forbids his chil-
dren secular history on Sunday." — Lyttleton, ComerSUm* of
Educalitm, pp. 307-8.

J b, Google

F amtt. v Worship 133

§ 6. methods of faioly worship
I. Grace at meals. — Shall we say grace at meals ?
To assent because it is the custom, 01 because it was
so done in our childhood's home, may make an
irreligious mockeiy of the act. Peihaps, too, there
are some who even hesitate to omit the grace from
an unspoken fear that the food mi^t hann them
without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or
hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling
and thought, that the act was almost unconscious,
a species of "vain ref«tition."

There are two outstanding aspects of the asking
of a blessing — the desire to e:q)ress gratitude for
the c<munon benefits of life, and the expression of
a wi^, with the recognition of its realization, that
at each meal the family group might include the
Unseen Guest, the Infinite Spirit of God. That
wish lifts the meal above the dull level of satisfying
appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to
make the meal much more than an eating of food,
"a feast of reason and a flow of soul," so does this
act make each meal a soda! occaaon lifted toward
the ^irituat. The one thought at the beginning,
the thought of the reality of the presence of God,
and of the nearness of the divine to us in our daUy
pleasures, gives a new level to all otur thinking.

How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing" ?
Urst, with simplicity and ^cerity. Avoid long,
elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err in

J b, Google

Z34 Reugioits Eddcahon in the Faioly

rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous
grace may soon become stilted and offensive. It
is better to say in your own words just what you
mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest,
to mean what they say with you.

Vaiy the form of petition. Scmietimes let it be
the silent grace of the Quakers ; scnnetimes children
will enjoy singii^ one of the old four-line stanzas, as

Be present &t oui table, Lord,

Be hen and everywhere adored;

These mercies bless and grant that we

May feast in Paradise with thee.

One might use the first three of the following
lines for breakfast and the last three at another
meal:

Foi the new moming with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night.
We thank the heavenly Father.

For rest and food, for love and friends.
For everything his goodness sends.
We thank the heavenly Father.'
or

When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs,
We bring our praise to Jesus to irtiom all praise bekings.

One especially needs to guard against the purely
dietetic grace, the one that only asks that the deity
will aid digestion, as that form so often heard,
"Bless these mercies to our use.""

' Quoted by W. S. Atheam, Tke Climck Scko^.

■ A number of good poona are given in A. R. Wdls, Gnet

J b, Google

Faioly Worship 135

Should we say grace on all occasions of meals?
What shall we do at the social dinner in the home?
The answer depends on the purpose of the grace.
Is it not that in oui own group we may have the
consciousness of the presence of God P When the
meal is that of our own group with a friend or two,
we bring the friends into the group and the act of
family worship is maintained. Usually tt''* is the
case. So it will be when the group is entirely at
one in this desire: the asking of grace will be per-
fectly natural. But when the group is a large one,
when the sense of family unity is lost, or when the
observance would seem imnatural, it is better to
omit it Grace in large gatherings often seems an
uncovering of the sacred aspects of the home life.

2. Bedtime prayers. — ^What of children's bed-
time prayers? Many can remember them. To
many the most natural, helpful time for formal
periods of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just
before retiring. But there is a grave danger in
establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers for
children, a danger manifest in the very form <A
certain of these prayers, as

Now I lay me down to sleq;>,
I pray the Lord my soul to ketp.
It is as though the child were saying, "The day is
ended during which I have been able to tak£ care of
myself, the hours of helpless sleep begin, and I ask
God to take care of me through the terrors of the

J b, Google

136 Religious Edxication in the Family

night." For some duldrai, at least, the night has
been made terrible by that thou^t; they have been
led to feel that the day was safe and beautiful, but
that the night was so dangerous and fearful that
onfy the great God could keep them through it,
and it was an open question whether their prayer
for that keeping would be heard.

One must avoid also the notion that such prayers
are part of a price paid, a system of daOy taxation
in return for which heaven furnishes us police
protection.

The best plan seems to be to encourage children
to pray, to establish in them the habit of clo^g
the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to watch
eq>ecially that the prayers learned in early life do
not distort the child's thoughts of God, and to make
the evening prayer an <q^rtuiuty for the child to
express his de^res to God his Father and Friend.
Having done this, as the cbildreQ grow up it is best
to leave them free to pray when and where they
will. One may properly encourage the evening,
private prayer; but the child ought to have the
feeling that it is not obligatoiy, that it must grow
out of his desire to talk with God, and, above all,
that it has no ^>ecial connection with the hour and
act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is
concerned, with the cloang of the day. Mothers
must see far beyond the cha r m of the {actuie formed
by the little white-robed figure at her knee. There

J b, Google

Famhv WoKsmp 137

is no hour so ricb in possibilities for this growing
life. It is one of the great <^portunitJe3 to guide
its consciousness of God.'

3. General family prayers. — ^It is true that, in
many homes, under modem conditious of business,
it is amost impossible for the family to be united
at the hour when worship used to be customary,
following breakfast. However, tliat is not the
only hour available. In many respects it is a poor
one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks the
sense of leisure. But there are few families where
the members do not all gather for the evening meal.
It is not difficult to plan at its close for ten minutes
in which all shall remain. Without leaving the
table it is possible to spend a short time in united,
social worship. Or, by establishing the custtnn and
steadily following it, it is possible to leave the table
and ill less than ten minutes find ample time for
worship in another room.

Really everything depends at first on how much
we desire to have family worship, whether we see
its beauty and value in the knitting of home ties,
in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the
quickening of the religious ideas. We find time
to eat simply because we must; when the necessity
of the spirit is vpoa us we shall find time also to
worship and to pray.

'W. B. Forbush gives a number of poetic fonm of pmya for
ehiUicD in Tkt RtUpom Surhire 0/ a LitUt Cktld, pp. i a, 13.

J b, Google

138 Reugious Educahon in the Fauly

Next to the will to make time comes the question
of method. First, determine to be simple, natural,
and informal. A stilted exercise soon becomes a
burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever
you do, seek to make it possible for all to have a
share by seeing tliat every thought is expressed
within the intelligence of even the younger mem-
bers, that is, of those who desire to have a share.
This does not mean descending to "baby-talk."
Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not
baby talk, but a child of seven can tmderstand
what is meant up to the measure of his e^>erience;
the language is essentially dmple though the ideas
are sublime.

Seamdly, insure brevity. For that part of wor-
ship in which all are expected regularly to unite,
ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent pro-
grams will not take more than half this time.
Family worship is not a diminutive facsimile of
church worship. Doubtless the experiment has
failed in many families because the father has
attempted to preach to a congregation which could
not es<^pe. Keep in mind the thought that this
b to be a high moment in each day in which every
member will have an equal share.

Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of
common participation. This is to be the expression
of the unity of the family life. Children enjoy
doing things co-operatively and in concert

J b, Google

Family Woksoif 139

Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in rela-
tion to other affairs. Proceed to the worship
without formal notice, without change of voice,
and without apology to visitors. Take this for
granted. At the close move on into other duties
without the sense of coming back into the world.
You have not been out of it; you have only recog-
nized the eternal life and love everywhere m it.

4. SuggesPions of plans. — ^There are given below
seven outlines of plans of worship. They are plans
which have been in use and have been tried for
years. Their only merit is simplicity and practi-
cability; but they are at least worthy of trial
There is no special significance in the arrangement
of the days and this may be changed in any way
desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic;
there will come special days, such as festivals and
birthdays, when the program should be varied.
For example, on a birthday the child whose anni-
versary then occurs should have the privilege of
making the choice of recitation or reading or of
determining the order of all the parts of this brief
period of worship.

MONDAY
I. A short psalm repeated in concert.
3. A brief, infoTmal petition by father or mother.
3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join.
Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it
I^ first selecting several suitable psalms. The following

J b, Google

I40 RxxiGions Eddcation m the Faidly

should be included: the ist, 19th, 33d, 34th, looth, 117th,
isist, and a part of the 103d. You would do well to mem-
orize one of these yourself, so as to be able to lead without
reading from the book. Next, think over with some care
the things for which you may pray, the aspirations whkh
your children can share with you. Few things are more
difficult than this, so to piay that all f*" make the prayer
their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not
a craven begging oS from punishments, nor a cowardly
plea for protection and provison. We can pray over all
these things with gratitude and with confidence toward the
God of love. Do not try to preach in your prayers. Many
prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as some preach-
ing has been q>oiled by praying to the people. Usually
four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better
a mgle thought dmply expressed than the most brilliant
attempt to inform the Almighty on all the events of the world
that day.

A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The
Lord's Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children
enter into it with some new meaning every day; it covers
all our great, common, daily needs.

TUESDAY

I. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from
either the Bible or other literature).

a. Read a very brief passage from the Bible.

3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer.

Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's
book mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage
children, however, to make theii selections from the poems
and passages they already know.

The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be
one which first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen

J b, Google

Family Wokship 141

for its in^iration and literary beauty. A few lines from
tbe great chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from
the Psalms (e.g., Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the
Mount, from I Cor., chap. 15, from the parables of Jesus,
will be suitable.

Hie dosing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be
read from one of the books of prayers. Many of the prayers
in the Episoqial Prayer Book are especially beautiful and
quite suitable. Of course in families of the Episcopal
church the collect for the day would be the right prayer to
use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers prepared
beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray
aknid, even in their own families. But halting sentences
that are your own, that your children recognize as yours,
may mean more to them than the finest Sowing phrases
from a book. Use the prayers from the book, not as a
substitute, but as an addition.

WEDNESDAY

1. A good poem from general literature.

2. Prayer.

Iliere are so many good collections of the great and
io^iring poems that one heatates to recommend any col-
lection. Remember that a poem may be religious and
imbued with tlie ^irit of worship, helpful to the purpose
of this occasioD, even though it contains no allusions to
Scripture and makes no direct references to religious belief.
"A House by the Side of the Road'" is thoroughly human,
popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic;
but it has a he^ful motive and is likely to lead the will
toward the life of service and brotherhood. Some would
prefer to read a part of one of the great hymns.

■ Bv Samuel Walter Foss.

J b, Google

143 Religious Education in the Family
thursday

t. A brief reading or teciUtion from tbe New Testament.

a. A few moments' convcmtion on the leading.

3. A veiy brief prayer followed by a song.

The ooV i^tarent difficulty here is in starting the con-
versation. Do not ask fonnal questions; rather put them
something like this: "I wonder whether people would do
just the same on our street today." Make the conversation
as geoeiai as possible; do not slight, not scoff at, the coutri-
bution of evm the least in the group.

FRIDAY

I. A few verses in concert.

1, Read a parable or veiy brief narrative.

3, The Lord's Prayer.

The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases
if it is a narrative from the Old Testament.' Even in read-
ing the Kew Testament one can at times use with advan-
tage the T^BCHtittlhCaatuy Bitie or the Modem Reader's
Bible.

SATURDAY

I. A period of song.

a. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer.

Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be
a hymn; that should depend on the choice of the children.
Help them to put together all the good songs, including the
hymns, in one category in their minds.

SUNDAY
I. Ask: "What has been the best we have read ot
repeated in our worship this week ? "

* One handy form is Tie Hearl ef Ike Bible, prepared by E. A.
Broadut; another. The Chiidren's Bible.

J b, Google

Family Wokship 143

2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition
this week, what psalm or other passage for oui conceited
worship?"

3. Read the psalm selected.

4. Closing prayer.

5. Period of song, lasting as long as dedred.

This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and
should be arranged m accordance with the program for
the day.

I. REreRKSCES POR Study
George Hodges, The Training of Children in Religion, chaps.

viii, ix. Appleton, $1 . 50.
The Improvement of S^gious Education, pp. 108 to 133.

Religbus Education Association, |o. 50.
Mis. B. S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available,"

Religious Education, October, 1911. (0.5a

n. FOBTHEH RbADINO

'Sjo(m&,The Chad's Rdigims Ufe. Eaton & Mams, ti.oa
Hartshome, Worship in the Sunday School. Columbia
University, $1. 25-

in. Methods and Materuls
A. R. Wells, Grace before Meal. U.S.C.E., $0. 35.
C. F. Dole, Choice Verses. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts.
Privately printed.

F. A. Hinckley (ed.), Readings for Sunday School and Home.

American Unitarian Association, $0.35.
J. Martin, Prayers for LilUe Men and Women. Harper,

S. Hart (ed.), Short Daily Prayers for Families. Longmans,
$0.60.

G. A. MJiier, Some Out-Door Prayers. Crowell, $0.35.

J b, Google

144 RSLIGIOtFS EDtFCAIION IN THE FaIULY

Ozenden, Family Praytrs. Longmans, Si . 50.

George Skene, Uontint Prayers for Home Worship. Meth-
odist Book Concern, $1 . 50.

W. E. Baiton, Pour Weeks of Family Prayer. Puritan
Press, Oak Paik, DL

Abbott, Family Prayers. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50.

Prayers for Parents and ChUdren. Young Cbmcfaman Co.,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to. 15.

IV. Tones FOK DiscussiOH

I. What are the causes for the decay of the cust<»n of
family worship ?

3. What influences us most: public opinion, popular
custom, economic pressure ?

3. How have the changes affected the religious influence
of thehmne?

4. What features of the older customs are most worth
preserving?

5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remem-
ber. How many mnint"'" the custom of bedtime prayers
in matuie life ?

6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at
meals?

7. Would there be advantage in occaaonal^ omitdng
the "grace"?

8. Give reasons for and against "grace."

9. Criticize the proposed plan of evenmg family prayers.

10. Describe any plans which have lieen tried.

II. Why is it dedrable to maintain family worship?

J b, Google

CHAPTER Xm

SCKDAY IN THE HOME
Almost every family finds Sunday a problem.
Other days are well occupied with full programs;
this one has a program for only part of its time.
Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action,
but this one is frequently marked by inaction,
repres^n, and limitations. As soon as the
evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed,
for those for whom it existed at all, the children
settle down to endure the day.

§ I. 1S& UEANING OF THE DAY

Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief
when Sunday b over must marvel at the strains of
"O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day defeats
its purpose when it is of any other character. We
have no right to rob it of its joy and its healing
bahn. On the day made for man, saaed to his
highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness
of the child ought to be set aside.

Instead of accepting traditions regarding the
method of observing the Sunday, would it not be
worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of the
day can we properly be held responsible? Here
are so many — fifty-two a year— days of special

J b, Google

146 Religious Education in the Faidly

opportunity. To U3 who complain that business
interferes with the personal education of our chil-
dren through the week, what ought this day to
mean? To us who lament the little time we
can spend with out families, what ought this day
to mean ? And what ought we to try to make it
mean to children ?

We call this God's day; what must some chil-
dren think of a God who robs his day of all pleas-
ure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then
how unattractive would be his years and eternity!
It is the day when we have our best opportunity to
show them what God is like, to interpret his world
and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches
of thought, and love.

It ought to be the day reserved for the best in
life, for the treasures of affection, for the uses of the
spirit. Whatever is done this.day must come to
this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness,
truth, and loving service ? Does this enrich lives ?
In other words, we may put the broad educational
test to the day and its program and determine all
by ministry to growing hves.

§ 2. conserving the values

The family faces the problem of the opposition

between the rights of man on this day and the

greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest

and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured.

jbyGooglc '

Sunday in the Houe 147

legally, but commerce in the name of amusement
and in the guise of petty and lumecessary trading
constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of
rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to
the dull level of the week of ministry to things.
The home has much at stake in this struggle. It
needs one day free from the life that tears its mem-
bers apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought,
free for its members to live together as ^iritual
beings.

In the need for one day, free from the things
that hinder and devoted to the life of the spirit,
the home finds the guiding principle for the use of
the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a
glorious opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the
best things of life. It is devoted to personality,
to man's rights as a religious being.

Surely one of the best things of life will be that
we shall meet one another, shall look into faces of
friends and companions! And this opportunity of
social min gling is lifted to a high level when it is an
act of the larger family life, the life that brings God
and man into one family. That is what the church
meeting and service ought to be: our Father's
larger family getting together on the day of the
life that makes them one. For the child the
church school and the children's service of worship
are their immediate points of vital touch with the
church family. If we think of the day as affording

J b, Google

148 Reugious Education m the Family

us the pleasure of social mingling with Iriends and
members of that family, Sunday morning will
cease to be a period of unwilling observance of
empty duties. Of course that will depend, too,
on the measure in which the church and school
grasp their opportunity to make this the best of
days.'

Further, let the home keep this day as the one
of personal values all the way through, sacred
to that life of love, friendship, and joy in the
presence of one another which is the essential life
of the family. It has always been a good custom
for friends to vi^t on this day, for families grown
up and established around their own hearths to
gather a^m for a few hours. It is the day when
we have time to discover how much greater are the
riches of friendship than aught besides, when, look-
ing into the eyes of those we love, we see "the
light that never was on sea or land," the ultimate
good!

The hours of being together are the hours of real
education. Children cannot be with good and great
people and remain the same. Their lives need
other lives. Above all, they need us. This should
be the day for real mothering and fathering.
Nothing ougjit to be permitted to interfere with
this, neither our social pleasures nor the demands
of the church.

' See dup. jvii, "The Family and the Church."

J b, Google

Sunday in the Houe 149

§ 3. the problem op play
What shall we do with the child who waats to
play on Sunday ? Is there any other kmd of child ?
They all want to. It is as natural for a child to
play as it is for a man to rest; it is as necessary. A
child is a growing person learning life by play.
Because play seems trivial to us we assume it is so
to them; we would banish the trivial from the
day devoted to the higher life. In some families
play is forbidden because children find pleasure
in it, and adults find it impossible to associate
piety and pleasure.

Shall we then throw down all barriers and make
this day the same as all others ? No, rather make
the day different by throwing down barriers that
stand OD other days. Let this be the day when
the barriers between father and sons, parents and
children, are let down and all can enter into the joy
of living.

Play is to a child the idealization of life's experi-
ences and the realization of its ideals. That is
why he plays at school, idealizing the everyday
life; that is why he plays at housdieeping, at being
in church, at being a railway engineer, even a high-
wayman or an outlaw. The traditional games are
the game of life itself ht terms of childhood. Play
as idealized experience and realized ideals is to the
child what the church, worship, and the reading of
fiction and essays are to the adult. Play is the

J b, Google

ISO RsuGiotrs Education in the Faicily

child's method of reaching forward into life's
meaning. Some games as old as history carry a
weight of human tradition and experience as rich
for a child as the adult obtains from historical
review and from association with the past. There
is a sense in which tSe child playing these games
opens the Bible of the race.*

We cannot make children over into our pattern;
we have to learn from them. Indeed, we come to
life through their ways. We must become as little
childres. Before w&settle the question of play on
Sunday we do well to be sure that we know what
play means to children, that we really grasp some-
thing of its educational value and its religious
potency. Th^ we can proceed to a family policy
in Sunday play.

§ 4. A POLICY ON PLAY

Kup the day as one of family unity. Help the
child to think of it as a day protected for the sake
of family togetherness. You can play that for this
day the ideal is already realized of a family life un-
interrupted by the demands of labor and bu^ess.

Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things,
together. Go to the place of worship together,
provided it is the place where the child can find
egression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday

■ See chap, vii on " Directed Activity," and the itttxtjuxa tot
stody at its end.

J b, Google

Sunday in the Home iji

school does not really lift the child-life and really
teach the child, if it is not honest with him and
makes no suitable provision for his developing
nature, he will be better off in a quiet hour of
family conversation and leading at home. That
means the application of parents to this hour.' It
banishes the monstrous Sunday suppl^nent with
its hideous, debasii^ pictures. It substitutes
conversation in the whole group, reading aloud of
stories and poems, bibUcal and otherwise, and
songs, hymns, or at tunes the walk in the fields or
parks. Fortunately the better type of Sunday
school is more and more to be found; children are
more and more receiving a ministry actually deter-
mined by their needs. So far as the church service
is concerned the ideal situation is found when a
parallel service is provided for children, based
on their needs and capacities. As to attendance,
under other circumstances, in the family pew, that
depends on whether the child is gainii^ an aver-
sion to the church by the torture and tedium often
involved. Without doubt many adults acquired
the settled habit of sleepily in church because
that was the only possible relief in childhood.'

■ Much may be learned by a study of Primary plans in a
modem Sunday school. Sec Athearn, Tke Church JcAmI,

■ Since we are dealing here especially with rdigious education
in the {amDy, the author refers to his more extended treatment
of the question of children in church services in EJiciaicy in Ht
Stmday Sekoet, dup. xv.

J b, Google

153 Religious Education in the Faioly

Maintain the family unity by stepping into the
child's ideal life. Expect activity and use it. Why
should we assume that because the adult finds a
Sunday nap enj(^able the child will be blessed by
eofotced silence? I would rathei see a father
playing catch with his boys on Sunday than see
the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sab-
bath sleep. Children will play. Their play is
innocent; more, it may be helpful and educative;
we can insure these values in it by our particyiation.
lliat is the parent's opportunity for a closer sym-
pathy with his children. Playing together is the
closest living, thin Icings and feeling together.
Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and
a^irations are shared, too. Besides, the par-
tic^tion of the adult may tend to tone up the
game and to moderate boisterousness.

Seek the beautiful. Si>eaking as one who has
beoi under both the puritanical regulation and the
so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday observ-
ance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the
sight of an entire fami^ playing at home, in the
park, or off in the woods or the fields of the country.
Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family ties
knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage
stimulated by play of this kind.

§ 5. POINTS OF DUTEEENCE

But because it is evidently most important that
this day should be different from other days, it is

J b, Google

Sunday in the Houe 153

well to mark that difference in our plays and
pleasures and to follow some simple principles for
Sunday play.

First, make it the day of the best plays. The
participation of parents will tend to have this
effect. Sometimes some forms of play may be
, reserved for this day.

Secondly, our play should never interfere with
the rights of those who desire to be quiet or to
observe the day in ways differing from ours. We
must respect the rights of all.

Thirdly, oOr play must not cause additional or
unnecessary labor.

Fourthly, our play must not interfere with the
pleasures of others. For instance, in the dfy chil-
dren who can use the pubUc tennis courts every day
should keep off them on Sunday in order to give
opportunity to those who can use them only on that
day.

Having said so much on play on Sundays, we
must not leave the impresidon that play is the
principal thing. It would be the principal thing
for children compelled to work or confined in
crowded tenements on all other days. Tliis is a
day of rest. Play should not be carried beyond
the rest and refreshment stage.

Nor must we assume that a recognition of play
involves neglect of worship and instruction. Both
should be cherished among the delights of the day.
Every attempt to make the day a happy one, by

UigniaOb, Google

154 Religious Education in ihe Family

noim&l play, associates the emphasis on worsh^
with increased happiness in the child's mind.

§ 6. THE SUNDAY AFTERNOON FKOBLEM

"What shall we do?" the childien ask restlessly
on Sunday afternoons, and it is by no means a
strange question. All the week they have their
school worit, on Saturdays their play. No wonder
Sunday afternoon seems dull. Yet if we older ones
use it aright this is our opportunity to give them the
best time of all the week. We can make this part
of the day really a holiday if we just take time to
plan it right There is something wrong in the
home in which the child, as he grows up, does not
look forward hiqiplty to his Sunday afternoons.

Sunday afternoon should be a family festival
time. Keep it sacred to the family. Business and
social life flaim us all the week, and the church
claims its share of this day; but these afternoon
hours we can, if we will, reserve for our own home
life, for the closet drawing together of children and
parents. To hold this time sacred for the children
and their interests will he^ to solve " the Sunday
afternoon problem."

I. The chad's question," WhcUshaU I do nexi?"~
Qiildren are dynamic, perpetually active. They
grow in the direction toward which their activities
are turned. Repression is impossible. We must
either find the best things for them to do, or let

J b, Google

Sunday m the Houe 155

them diance on things good or bad. The following
outline for Sunday afternoon is given in the hope
that it may he^ to answer the "what next"

1. Begin to make Tht Family Book.

3. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excur-
sion in honor of tbe one for wliom the day is named.

3. Oi^anize an eiploring party to discover peoples and
scales of long, long ago.

4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts.

5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise.

2. " The Family Book."— To start The Family
Book, mother or father raises the question at
dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last
year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from
the oldest down to the least, should have a chance
to tell. The statements of the older ones will
encourage the younger.

That question will start another; What is the
very best thing we can remember about the year
past ? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and
in just ten minutes decide on and write down the
one thing best worth remembering. Perhaps the
baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want
p^>er and pencil, too. Now, instead of making
our answers known to one another, we fold the
papers and keep them till the evening meal. We
will open them then and talk it all over. After-
ward we are going to copy the answers into a new
book we are going to make.

J b, Google

156 ReUGIOTTS EDUCAtlON IN THE FAMILY

Tliis new bo(& is to be called The Pamly Book,
and we eipect to put into it all the pleasant things
we wish to record about our home and family.
Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some
time today we will elect a keeper of the Ixx^
and before we go to bed we will see the first entry
in that book under the title, "Ha[^y Memories of
1915." That will make a good beginning for
The Family Book. Next Sunday we. will discuss
and set down in the hook the happy memories of
the intervening week.

3. The festisal name. — ^Now, we have been
^tting, talking, and writing as long as the children
will care to be still. Suppose we all go outdoors
together, every (me of us. What if the weather is
bad ? It is seldom truly bad, and there is so much
real happiness in g<ung out in all weathers together.

But where shall we go? There is no fun in
walking simply for exercise or health. Well, says
father, we can decide where to go by naming the
day. How? We will find the most interesting
birthday or anniversary that falls today or during
the next week. If one of the family has a birth-
day then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If
not, then when we have chosen the national hero
or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, or
the event the anniversaty of which comes nearest,
we will go, if possible, where something will remind
us of that person or event.

J b, Google

SUMDAY IN THE HOME 1 57

So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We
search through almanacs until we find the anni-
versary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the
parents has anticipated all this by looking vp the
matter, and has a good name to suggest. Or the
older ones may consult a dictionary of dates. It
may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero.
In the dty he may have a statue; in the country
may be found the kinds of woods, flowers, or
animals he loved.

4. The exploring party. — ^But even after the
walk it will not be long before the little ones are
asking, "What can we do next ?" So we organize
the exploring party. Our object is to discover
the countries, scenes, strange pec^les, and most
interesting persons we have heard of in the Bible.
We are to find them in the advertising sections of
old magazines. Let each one take a magaane
and go through it, looking for oriental scenes, for
pictures of incidents and of m^i and women that
will remind him of Bible scenes and characters.
These are to be cut out, explained, and arranged
in the order of time, as they hai^>ened, every
member of the family helping. The same plan
may be a|^lied to scenes of missionary work,
using blank books for stories of heroism which
children will illustrate with the magazine pictures.

5. Home thoughts. — "Home, sweet home," is
just a comer of the afternoon saved for the

J b, Google

158 ReUGIOUS EDUCATtON IN TBZ FaICILY

discovery and reading of selections that aie worth
keeping in our memories and are also likely to help
us hold our homes in some measuie of the love and
reverence they deserve. There are songs of home
that ought never to be forgotten.

6. Religious reading and songs dose the day
happily. — Children love religious reading and
songs, provided they are offered for their worth and
not as an ezerdse, or to be learned as an empty
duty. Take down your Bible and read Psalm 100,
"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands";
see whether th^ do not all enjoy the music and
majesty of those lines. You will not find it difficult
to secure their co-operation in learning that by
heart

Then close the day with an hotu- of song. The
children will remember songs learned thus all their
lives; therefore those worth remembering shoiild be
chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many
of us learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me,
this I know." That and others that are appro-
priate can be found in almost every hymnbook.
Many books of school songs also have a few hymns
and Sunday songs that children like.

Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to
choose appropriate stories to read to the children
on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the
told story to the read one, but if you wish to read
you will make no mistake in selecting Christie's Old

J b, Google

SCNDAY m THE HOUE 1 59

Organ; Aunt Abbey's Neighbors, by Annie T.
Slosson; The Book of Golden Deeds, by Cliarlotte
M. Yonge; and Telling Bible Stories, by Louise S.
Houston. Some Great Stories and Sow to Tell
Them, by Richard Wyche, and Story TeUing, by
Edna Lyman, will serve as good guides to what
to tell, and how to tell it

7, Naming the day. — From week to week variety
should enter into the Sunday program. On the
Sunday following the one described above we can
begin at the dinner table the happy task of "nam-
ing the day." We can decide whether it shall be
called after one of our own number, whose birthday
falls near this date, or after one of the anniver-
saries of the week following.

Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the
feast day of the church year observed by certain
churches. That should lead to discussion and
investigatioD of the meaning of the day.

When all are agreed on a name, write it under
its date on your wall calendar. It will be a con-
veni^t suggestion for next year, unless the decision
is for a different name when the day again comes
round. It will also call to mind some of the inter-
esting discussions which it aroused.

After this we might call for The Family Book,
which now contains, you will recall, the family's
decision as to the best Simday and the happiest
occurrences of the year before. The keq>er,

J b, Google

i6o RxLiGiovs Education in the Fauhy

appdnted last week, must bring it out We can
read what we wrote a week ago and decide on
the things worth entering this week. Records of
birthdays, special happenings to each of the family,
the bright sayings of little ones, and the visits of
friends and relatives all should go in.

8. "/ remembtr" jfor»«.~-While The Family
Book is apea is the psychological moment for
father and mother to tell stories of their childhood.
Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I
remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging
to something that goes back and has a history.
The old family album is a never-failing source of
delight, not so much because of the pictures as
because of what they si^gest of family traditions.

Now is a good thne to select some certain thing
which shall be used only on this day, such as a
festival lamp or candlestick, some festival plates
or dishes — ^just one thing or set of things toward
the use of which we can look forward during the
week. This he^ to make Sunday what we used
to call "a treat"

9. Golden deeds. — ^Last week we started The
Family Book in which to keep a record of all the
h^py experiences that belong to our family. This
week we begin another book. In it we expect to
place every veek. just one splendid story, the
account of a golden deed, some piece of everyday
kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard

.b, Google

Sunday m the Houe i6i

or which we have witnessed. Everycme is to have
a chance to contribute to this book., all the family
deciding by vote each week as to which story should
be placed on its pages.

Did you read in the paper this week of some
brave or kindly deed done by a boy or a girl, a man
or a woman? Did you see someone do an act
of kindness? Cut out the account or write out
the stoiy and have it ready for your own Golden
Deed Book. Everyone must watch all the week
for the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how
much good you will find in the world when you are
looking for it

Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each
story and talk over its fine points of virtue and
goodness. Thus may be developed an aj^recia-
tion of the human qualities that are really admi-
rable. We can discuss also the probability of cer-
tain of the stories and the righteousness of the deeds.

Any blank book will do, or even a composition
book. It will help to keep hands happily occupied
if you make your own covers and cut out gilt
letters for the title. Often you can find pictures
to illustrate the stories chosen; sometimes you
may prefer to draw the illustrations. Keep The
Gtdden Deed Book in a safe and convenient place,
because there ought to be something to go into it
every week. For instance, did you read the other
day of the young man who jumped in front of a

J b, Google

i63 Reuciovs Educahoh in the Faiuly

train to save a young girl ? He lost his life, but be
saved bers. Can you find that story and put it in
the book? Perhaps you have found one that
seems even more fitting.

10. Various plans. — Giving happiness creates it.
Plan something every Sunday for the happiness of
others. Occasionally go in a body to call on some-
one who will be made h^py by the visit.

If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how
many things you can discover that you have read
about in the Bible of know to be mentioned there.

Try the game of "guessing hymns." While
someone plays the familiar tunes, each takes a
turn at identifying them and the hymns to which
they belong.

Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write
a letter to send to the brother or sister, relative or
friend, at a distance. Even the baby can scratch
something which he thinks is a "real enough"
tetter in penciled scribbles.

Close the day with qmet reading and song, or
with the memory exercise in which all endeavor to
repeat some single psahn or a few verses, like
the Beatitudes. All children like to repeat the
Lord's Prayer m family concert.

I. Refekehces por Stddv
Einilie Foulsson, Love and Law in Ckild Tramii^, ch^is.
i-HV. Milton Bradley, |i . oo.

J b, Google

Sunday m the Home 163

Happy Svudays for Children and Sunday fn the Borne.
Pamphlets. American Institute of Child Life, Phila-
delphia, Pa.

n. Ftbthee Rzaddig
Stmdaiy Play. Pamphlet. AmcricaD Institute of Child

Life, Philade^ihia, Pa.
^>dges. Training of Children in Sdigion, chap. xiii. Af^e-

ton, ti . 50.

m. Methods akd Materials
A Year of Good Sundays. Pamphlet. American Institute
of Child Life, Pfailade^hia, Fa.

IV. T(»IC3 T(»t DiSCtJSSIOH

I. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family?
Is it that of securing quiet or of wisely directing the action
of the young ?

3. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for
good or ill?

3. What are the arguments against children playing on
Sunday? Is there any essenUal relation between the play
of children and the wide-(^)cn Sunday of conunerdalized
amusements?

4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically
all the family might unite ?

5. What characteristics should distinguish play on
Sundays from other days ? Is it wise to attempt thus to
flifitingiiinh this day ?

fi. Criticize the suggestions on occupations for Sunday
afternoons.

7. Recall any especially helpful forms (d the use of this
day in your childhood, or coming under your observation.

J b, Google

CHAPTERXIV

THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE
Shall the periods for meab be for the body cmty
or shall we see m them happy occasions for the
enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer
depends whether the table shall be IRtle more than
a feeding-trough or the scene of constant mental
and character development In scmie memories
the meals stand out only in terms of food, while
pictures of dishes and fragments of food fill the
mind; in others there ate borne throu^ all life
pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of
knowledge gained and ideals created in the glow of
conversation.

§ I. THE OPPOETUNITY

The family is together as a united group at the
table more than anywhere besides. Table-talk, by
its informality and by the aid of the pleasures of
social eating, is one of the most influential means
of education. Depend upon it, children are more
impressed by table-talk than by teacher-talk or
by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the
other occasions, but here the moral lessons throw
outnowaming; they meet no opposition; theyare
— or ought to be, if they would be effective — a

J b, Google

The Ministry of the Table 165

natural part of oidtnaiy conversatioii and, by being
part and parcel of eveiyday affairs, they become
nonnally related to life. The table is the best
opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and
this b for children the natural and only really
^ective form of moral instruction.

The child comes to these social occasions with a
hungry mind as well as with an empty stomach.
His mind is always receptive — even more so than
his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which
wiU stay with him much longer than his food.
Even if we were thinking of his food alone, we
should still do well to see that the table is graced
by happy and hel[^ conversation; nothing will
aid digestion more than good cheer of the spirit;
it stimulates the oi^ans and, by diverting attention
from the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that
most dedrable end, a leisurely consumption of
food.

The general conversation of the family group
has mote to do with character development in
children than we are likely to realize, and the
table is peculiarly the opportunity for general
conversation. Here, most of all, we need to
watch its character and consider its teaching
effects. Where father scolds or mother complains
the childien grow fretful and quarrelsome. Where
father q>ends the time in reciting the sharp dealing
of the ma^et or the political ring, where mother

J b, Google

i66 Religious Education in the Faioly

delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her
social rivalries, they teach ihe children that life's
object is either gain at any cost or sodal glory.
But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite,
to q»eak of the pleasures found in Ampler ways,
to glory in goodness and kindness, and to teach,
by relating the worthy things of the day, the worth
of love and truth and high ideals. The news of
the day may be discussed so as to make this world
a game of grab, inviting youth to cast conscience
and honor to the winds and to plunge into the
greedy struggle, or so as to make each day a book
of b«iutiful pictures of life's best pleasures and
enduring prizes.

§ 3. DIEECTINO TABIE-TAUC

But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative,
does not occur by accident. It comes, first, from
our own constant and habitual thought of the meals
in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms.
And it reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to
create and direct the kind of conversation that is
desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with
salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let
your salt be seasoned with good speech. That is
the quality we must seek, the seasoning of health-
ful, saving, and not insipid, speech.

One of the great advantages of "grace before
meat" lies in this: it gives a tone to the occasion.

J b, Google

The Ministry of the Tabu! 167

Its chief meaning is surely that we remind our-
selves of the ever-present guest who is also the
giver of all good. Where the grice is not a per-
functory act, but rather the welcoming of such a
guest, the meal has started on a high level. We
cannot do better than so to act and speak as those
who take the divine presence for granted. We
need not preach about it; we need on^ to assume
it and move on the level of that friendship. Chil-
dren will feel it; they will seek to answer to it, and
will find pleasure in the very thought which they
have perhaps never expressed in words.

The central idea of the grace su^ests another
means of helpful influences at the table, by bringing
into our homes, for the meab, the friends whose lives
will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything
to live even for an hour with good and broadening
lives. There are obligations to our guests to be
considered, and their wishes should be consulted,
but one always feels that children are bemg cheated
when they are sent to eat at another table and
deprived of the peculiar intimate touch with Uves
that bring the benefits of travel and e]q>erience.
Ask your own memory what some persons who
ate at the table with you in childhood meant
to you.

The wise hostess knows that even when she
brings together the group of mature folks, and
even when they are wise and witty, she must be

J b, Google

1 68 Reugiods Education in iue Family

pi^taied adroitly to inspire the conversation or it
may fl^ at times. Gow much more does the con-
veisatioQ need direction where we have the same
group every day composed largely of immature
persons! When you have thought of all the por-
tions and all the plates, have you thought of the
food for the spirit?

Before suggestmg methods of selection and
direction, let a word of explanation be said: food
for the spirit is not confined to theology, to hymns
and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel
and think of life as an affair of the spirit. And this
must come in very ^mple terms, by the elementary
steps, for young folks. It will be whatever will in
any way help us to live more kindly, more cheer-
fully, more as though this really were God's world
and all folks his family. Whatever does this is
truly religious.

§ 3- METHODS

Plan for the food of the ^irit as seriously at
least as for the food of the body. Leam to recog-
nize poisons and also indigestibles. The first
are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, maUce,
impatience, tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and
discontent. The second are subjects too heavy for
children: your formal theology would be one of
them, your judgments on some intricate subjects
may be among them. It is seldom wise to announce

J b, Google

Ts£ Ministry of the Table 169

negative injimctions, but we can make up oui own
minds to avoid the conversational poison^and, when
they appear, it is always easy to push them out.
Even when the unpleasant subject is so common to
all and has been so impressive in the day's ex[>erience
that it threatens to become the sole, absorbing
topic, we can say, "We won't talk of it at tablel
Let's find something better." But we must then
have ready the something better; that will be
possible only by forethought.

First, save up dimng the day, or between the
meals, the best thoughts, the cheeni^, kind, ideal,
and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of
saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to
enjoy tonight at the table."

Secondly, expect the other members to bring
their best. Ask for "the best news of the day"
from one and another. Encourage them to tell of
good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal
things heard and spoken.

Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of dis-
cussion. Let children tell what they think of
moral ^tuations. Often they will quote the
ofHuions of teachers and others. Always you will
secure tmder these circumstances the unreserved
expression of what they actually think. A free,
informal conversation of this sort where opinions
are kindly examined and compared is the finest
kind of teaching.

J b, Google

170 Reugioits Educateon in toe Fakely

Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor.
To see the odd, whim^cal, startling side of the
incident or experience trains one to see the iater-
play of life, to catch a ray of light from all things,
and to moderate our tendency to permit our
tragedies to pull the heavens down.

Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the con-
sciousness of family unity by recounting past
happy experiences and discus^ng plans of family
life. In one family there are few meals from
October to Christmas that do not include reminis-
cences of the summer in the woods and by the
water, or from Christmas to June without plans
for the next summer in the same place. Then,
too, if you are contemplating something new, a
piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here.
Let each one have his share in the planning. The
effect is most important for character; the chil-
dren acquire the sense of a share in the family
community life. They get their first lessons in
citizenshq> in this group, and they thus leam social
living. Then when the chair, or what not, is
bought, it is not alone the parents' possession;
it bebngs to all and all treat it as the property
ofaO.

Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot
come in person. It is fine fun to say, "We have
with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote
books." Let them guess who it was; help, if neces-

jb, Google

The Ministry of xhe Table 171

sary, by an allusion to The Life of the Bee and The
Blue Bird. They will want to know more about
Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what
they would say to him and how he would answer,
what he would eat and how he would behave. In
this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln,
Whittier, Florence Nightingale, and an innumer-
able company.

Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves
that table-manners are no small part of the moral
life. By the habituation of custom we can estab-
lish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfukess
for others, in the underlying consideration of others
which is the basis of all courtesy. Children's
questions on table-etiquette must be met, not
only by the formal rules, but also by their explana-
tion in the intent of every gentle Ufe to give pleas-
ure and not pain to others, so to live in all things
as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to
help them to find and be the best. It is not only
impolite to grab and guzzle, it is unsocial and so
unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a
diatresang sight to others. It is irrehgious,
because whatever tends to make this life less
beautiful must be offensive to the God who made
all things good.

If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order,
and kindliness in the conduct of the table, our
children acquire a love of all that makes for beauty

J b, Google

173 Religious Education in iqe Faioz.'y

and otder and kindliness, for righteousness in the
little things of life. A clean tablecloth may be a
means of grace. You have to try to live up to it.
Order and quietness in eating are not separable
from the rest of the life. To lift up life at any point
is to raise the whole level. To let it down at any
point is to let all dovn. But to lift up the level of
conversation at tbe table is to raise the level of the
entire occasion and to male it more than a period
of eating, to convert it into a festival, a joyous
occasion of the spirit. The meal should be in all
things worthy of the unseen guest.

How neat we all come together at the table!
In its freedom how clearly are we seen by our
children! Here they know us for what we are
and so leam to interpret life.

I. RXRSBNCE roK Studt
rdUe Talk. Pamphlet. Americao Institute of Child
Life, Philadelpbia, Pa.

n. Topics ros Discussion
I. The relation of mental conditions to digestion.
3. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits.

3. The table as an opportunity for the gnice of courtesy,
and the relation of this giace to Christian diaracter.

4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at
table.

S- Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having
any directly teligiaus values ? WLy 7

J b, Google

CHAPTER XV
THE BOY AND GIRL IN THE FAMILY
Much that has been said so far has had in mind
only the problems of dealing with younger children
in the life of the home. Bideed, almost all litera-
ture on education in the family is devoted to the
years prior to adolescence. But older boys and
girls need the family and the family needs them.
Many of the more serious problems of youth with
which society is attempting to deal are due to the
fact that from the age of thirteen on boys have no
h(mie life and girls, especially m the cities, are
deprived of the home influences.

§ I. THE GBOWING BOV

The life of the family must have a place for the
growii^ boy. It must make provision for bis
physical needs; these are food, activity, rest, and
shelter. Youth is a period of physical crisis.
Health is the basis of a sound moral life. Many
of the lad's apparently strange propensities are due
to the physical changes takii^ place in his body
and, often, to the fact that it is assumed that his
rugged frame needs no care or attention.'

* A good brief book on the problem of the adolescent is E. T.
Swift, Tputh and the Race; another, from the school pcont of
view, is Irving King, The BighSchool Ait, whkh bas much
maieoA of great value to parents.

J b, Google

174 Rmjoious Education in the Fawly

It will take more than tearful pleading to hold
him to bis home; he can be held only by its min-
istry to him; he will be there if it is the most
attractive place for him. Some pai^its who are
praying for wandering boys would know why they
wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded
quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room,
tiie makeshift bed, and the general home organ-
ization which long ago assumed that a boy could
be left out of the reckoning.

The boy needs a part in the family activities.
He can belong only to that to which he can give
himsdf. It will be his home in the degree that he
has a share in its bu^ess. Begin early to confer
with him about your plans; make him feet that
he is a partner. See that he has a chance to do
part of the work, not only its "chores," but also
its forms of service. But even a boy's attitude
to the "chores" will depend on whether they are
a responsibility with a degree of dignity or a form
of impaid drudgery. His room should be his own
room, and he should be responsible for its neatness
and its adorning. Services which he does regu-
larly for all should receive regular compensation.
In all services which the home renders for others
he should have a share; fhia is his training for the
larger citizenship and society of service.'

■On the various activities of boys see W. A. M(£eever,
IktBoy.

J b, Google

The Bov and Gnu. m the Family 175

The boy is a playing animal. Not all homes
can be fully equipped with play apparatus. But
no parents have a ri^t to dioose family quarters
as though children needed nothing but meals and
beds. The shame of the modem apartment build-
ing is that its conveniences are all for passive adults.
To attempt to train an active, growing, vigorous,
playing human creature in one of these immense
filing-cases, where all persons are shot up elevators
and filed away in pigeonholes called rooms, is to
force him out to the life of the streets. The
thoughtless self-indulgence of modern parents,
seeking only to live without physical effort, is the
cause of much juvenile delinquency."

But play for the boy is more than shouting and
running in the grass and among trees; he needs books
and opportunities for indoor recreation. For the
sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room
if necessary, and make way for the punching-bag and
the h<mie billiard- table or pool-table; here is a mag-
net of innocent skilful play to draw him off the street
and to bring the boy and his friends under his own
joot. If posable his room ought to be the place
that is his own, where his friends may come, where
he may taste the beginnings of the joys of home-
living in receiving them and entertaining them.*

■See the notable report by Breckinridge and Abbott, The
DtUuquaii Child and the Home.

' On the gregarious instincts see J. A. Puffer, The Boy and Hit
Gang.

J b, Google

176 Religious Eoucahon m tas Family

A vorkbench in the attic or basement has saved
many a boy from the street. Such apparatus truly
interferes with the symmetrical plan of a home that
is deigned for the entertainment of the neighbors;
but families must some time choose between chairs
and diildren, between the home for the purpose of
the lives in it and the household for the purpose
of a salon/

§ 3. BEUGIOUS SEBVICE

In the religious family there is valuable oppor-
tunity to train youth to one form of participation
in the religious life. Whatever the family gives
or does for social service, for philanthrofac enter-
prises, for the support of the church or religious
work, ought to be, not the gift of one member or
of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extend-
ing itself in service through the community, the
nation, and the world. The form and the amount
of the gifts ought to be a matter of fami^ con-
ference and each member ought early to have the
opportunity and the means of determining his
share in such extension. The child's gifts to the
church should not be pennies thrust into his hand
as he crosses the threshold of home for the Sunday
school, but his own mcmey, from his own account
— partly his own direct earnings — appropriated
for this or for other purposes by himself and with

■See the books oo numual woric glvoi in dap. vii," Directed
Activity."

J b, Google

The Boy and Gi&l in the Family 177

the advice of his piaents. Family councils on
fonns of partic^tion in ideal activities, by gifts
and by service, bind tiie whole life t<^etiier and
fonn occasions in which tiie child is learning life
in tenns of loving, self-giving service.'

The boy needs friendshq>. Not all his needs
can be met by the schoolboys whom he may bring
into his loom, nor can they all be met by his
mother's affection. He needs a father. The most
serious obstacle to the religious education of boys
is that most of them are half-orphans; intel-
lectually and spiritually they have no fathers.
The American ideal seems to be that the man
shall be the money-maker, the woman the social
organizer, and the children shall be committed to
hired shepherds or left to shift for themselves.

§ 3. THE FATHEtt AND THE BOY

No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy
that his father ought to be. No man can ever
commit to another, still less to some tract or book,
the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and conse-
cration in the matter of the sex problems.

The first word that needs to be said on this sub-
ject is that such problems receive safe and sufficient

* On tbe religious life of the boy in lelatioa to society and
t|he chinch see Alhtn Hoben, The Minister otid Ihe Boy, and
the snttioT's treatment of boys and tlie Sunday sdiool in Efficiency
H* Ike Sunday School, chap, ziv; also J. Alexander el al., Traitting
the Boy, a symposium.

J b, Google

178 R£UGiotTS Education m tee Family

guidance only in the atmosphere of affection and
reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of
yours as though you were dealing with a class in
phy^ology. The largest thing you can do for him
is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the
functions of life. By your own attitude, by your
own expressions and opinions, lead htm to a hatred
and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and bestial, to
a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils
and degrades manhood, and to a reverence for
purity, beauty, and life.'

Be prepared to give him, on the basis of rever-
ence, the clean, clear facts. Be sure you have the
facts. Donotthinkheisignorant; heisinaworld
seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and
experiences of evil. The trouble is that his facts
are partial, distorted, and unbalanced by positive
errors; his knowledge is gained from the -street
and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can
help him unravel the good from the bad, the true
from the false. Do not trust to your own general
knowledge; take time to read one of the simple
and sane books on this subject.* Be ready to lead
him aright. Remember this subject has pro-

■ On the attitude of reverence in this question read Dr. Cabot's
fine essay, Tke Christian Approach to Social Uoraiity.

' Tbe works of Dr. W. S. Hall, From Boyhood to Manhood,
toi parents' guidance with boys of thirteen to dghteen; E. Lyttle-
Um, TrainiHt 0/ tht r(»mg in Laws of Sex, is csceHeat for fathers;
Reproduction and Stxual Hygiene is a text for older youth to be
lecanunended; also, for leading, N. B. Richardaou, Sei Cullure
Talks, D. S. Jordan, The Sbength 0/ Bewij CUan.

J b, Google

The Boy and Girl in the Family 179

voked a large number of books, many of which are
foolish and others unwholesome. Do not try to
deputize your duty to some doubtful book-

§ 4. FATHERINO THE BOY

But the boy needs more than instruction on a
special subject; he needs personality, he needs the
time and thought of, and personal contact with)
his father. Men who do not live with boys never
know what they lose. And alas, see what the boy
missesi He has been his mother's boy up to school
age when school takes him and gives him a woman's
guidance, while the Sunday school is likely to keep
him — ^for a while only — under the eye of some dear
sister who "just loves boys." The system is a
vicious one. The lad needs developed masculinity.
If he gets it neither in school nor in the home he
will find it on the street comer, throi^h the vicious
boy-leader of the degrading poolroom or the alleys.

The boy who finds his father eager to talk over
the game, to discuss the merits of peg-tops, to
walk, row, play, and work with him, finds it as
simple and natural to talk with him over his moral
and religious questionings as it is to talk over the
daily happenings. To live with the boy is to find
the youth with you. But it is hard work dis-
covering your young men if you lost your boys.'

' For further studies of the problem of the boy puenta would
do well to read: Building Boyhood, a Bympi»ium; W. A.
McKeever, Trainini tke Boy; W. B. Forbush, The Coming
GeHenUon; W. D. Hyde, TMe Quest of the Best.

UigniaOb, Google

i8o Religious Education in the Faioly

§ 5. THE GEOWmO QJKL

Almost all that has been said about the Ix^
applies to the girl of the same years. Let a speciai
plea be entered here against the notion that girls are
favored when sheltered from a share in the activities
of the home. They desire to express their ideals as
much as do boys. Much of the so-called craze for
amusements is due to the fact that the family is so
organized that there is no vent to the ideals there,
no chance to have a share in the business of life.
Young folks with the sense that " this is our home,"
not "our parents', but ours," bend their energies to
its adomii^, and find in it the chance to realize
some of their pas^on for beaut? and for service.'

Mothers usually do better than do fathers in
the matter of sex instruction. Yet they usually
begin too late, long after the little girl has acquired
much misleading information in the school. Here,
too, the first aim must be to quicken reverence for
life, to set up the conception of the beauty and
dignity of sex functions before the baser mind of
the street has had an opportunity to interpret them
in terms of the dirt.*

Above all, with boys and girls, the whole subject,
including marriage and the founding of a family,

' On acdvi^es see W. A. McKeever, Training Ae Girl.

■ Od the problem with young children see IS.. Morley, Tit
Reneical of Life; id connectitHi with (dder^ils see K.H. Wayne,
Buildint Tour Girl.

J b, Google

The Boy and Gnu. m the Famzly i8i

must ever be treated with dignity and reverence.
Foolish parents jest with their girls about their
beaux and boast that their little ones ate playing
at courtship. If they could realize the wonder
awakened, followed by paiii and then by hardened
sensibilities and coarsened ideals, they would sacri-
fice their jests for the sate of the child's soul. We
wonder that you& treats lightly the matter of
social purity when we have treated the sacred rela-
tions of life as a jest. If this family in which they
now live is to be a place of sacred associations, of
real religious life, the whole matter of marriage and
the family must be treated with reverence. Their
practice will not rise above our everyday ideals as
expressed in casual conversation and in our own
practice.

I. Refesences for Sximy

THE BOY

W. A. McKeever, Training the Boy, Part IH. Mafmillan

tJ.SO.
Boy Training, Part IV. A Symposium. Associated

Press.
Johnson, The Problemt of Boyhood. The University of

Chicago Press, ti.oo.

Margaret Slattoy, The Girl in Her Terns, chaps, iv,

Sunday School Times Co., I0.50.
Wayne, Building Your Girl. McClurg, to. 50.

J b, Google

i83 Religious Education m toe Fauuy

n. Further Rxadino
W. B. F«rbu3h, Tke Commt GttKrativn. Appleton, $i . 50.
Puffer, ^Ae Bvy amd Bis Gang. Houghton Mi£Bm Co.,

ti.oo.
Irving Eing, T/u High School Age. Bobt»-MerriU, ti.oa
BuiUmt ChOMood, A Sympodum. Suixlay School Times

Co., ti.oo.

m. Topics tok Discussion
I. What ue tlie q;)ecial needs of the growing boy?
a. Wh&t ve the things that a boy en joys in bis hcKoe P
3. In what way does dty life interfere with the natural

development of the child ?

4 What are some of the natural ezpres^ns of religion

foratx^?

5. How early should the sex instruction be^?

6. What does a father owe to the boy, and what are the
best methods of meeting the duty ?

7. What aie the normal activities for girb in the home 7

8. What are their eqted&l needa?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XVI
THE NEEDS OF YOUTH
Families are for the spiritual development of
youth as weU as of chUdhood. The home is for
the young people as well as for the younger ones.
But the very period when they slip from church
school is also the period when they are often lost
to the real life of the fanuly. In some measure
this is due to the natural development of the social
life. The youths go out to work, move forward
into enlarging social groups which demand more
of their free time. They are learning the life of the
larger world of which they are now a part.

§ I. THE SCHOOL OV YOCTCH
But the family is still the home of these young
people; normally it is still the most vital edu-
cational influence for them. Yet there is no prob-
lem more baffling than that of family ministry tor,
and leadership of, the higher Ufe of youth.

It is a short-measure interpretation of the home
which thinks of it as only for yoimg children and
old folks. The young men and women from sixteen
to twenty and over still need training and direction;
they need close touch with other lives in affection
and in an ideal atmosphere. In a few years they,
183

UigniaOb, Google

i84 KsuGiotTS Education in mE Family

too, iriU be home-makers, and here id the home
they are veiy directly learning the art of family
life.

For youth there are few e£Eective schools, out-
side the home, other than the streets and the places
of commercialized amusement. EXren where the
other agencies of training are used, such as college,
classes, and associations (such as the Y.M.C~A..
and the Y.W.CA.), life, at that period, needs the
restraints on selfishness that come from family life,
the refining and socializing power of the family
group.

§ 3. SPECIAI. MEEDS OF YOITTH

What are the special needs of youth upon which
the &niily may base a reasonable program for their
higher needs?

First, the need of sound physical health. This
is a period of physical adjustment Rapid bodiiy
growth is nearly or quite at an end; new functions
are asserting themselves. The new demands for
directed activity may, under the ambitious im-
pulses of youth, make undue drafts on the energies.
Ilie apparent moodiness that at times characterizes
this period may be due to poor health. Tlie moral
strain of the period will need sound muscles and
good health. Parents who would sit up all night
— perhaps involuntarily — ^when the baby has the
colic treat with indifference sickness in youth and

J b, Google

The Needs op Youth 185

too readily assume that the young man or the
young woman will outgrow these physical ills.
But bodily maladjustment or incapacity has most
serious character efEects. To live the right life
and render high service one needs to be a whole
person, with opportunity to give imdivided atten-
tion and undiminished powers to the struggle of
life.

Secondly, this is peculiarly the period of the joy
of friendships. The social nature must have its
food. This young man has discovered that the
world consists of something besides things; it is
full of people. He is just learning that they are all
persons like himself. He enters the era of conscious
personal relationships. He would explore the
realm of personality. He touches great heights
of happiness as other lives are opened to him. It
is all new and wonderful, this realm of personality,
with its aspects of feeling, thinking, willing, and

§ 3. MAINTAINING PRJENDSHIP WITH YOUTH

Do parents know how hungry their older children
are for their friendship ? They will never tell us, for
this world is too new and strange for facile descrip-
tion; they are always bashful about their hunger
for persons until they find the same hunger and
joy in us. We unagme that they are indifferent
to us; the trouble is we are hidden from them.

J b, Google

i86 RxLiGiOTTS Education m tbx Faiulv

We seldom give tiiaa a chance to talk as friend to
friend, not about trifling things, but about life
itself and what it means. Perhaps at no point do
par^ts exhibit less ability for sympathetic recon-
struction and interpretation of their own lives than
here. They recall the pleasures of childhood and
provide those pleasures for the children. Why not
recaU the hunger of eighteen years of age and give
these youths &e very bread of our own inner
selves? Or do we, when they ask this bread, give
them the sttme of mere provision for their physical
needs or the scorpion of careless indulgent^ in
things that debase the tastes ?

One perplexing phenomenon must not be over-
looked: it will often happen that young people
pass through a period of what appears to be
parental aversion. There will sometimes seem to
be su^cion, violent opposition, and even hatred
of parents. This is no occasion for despair. It is
a stage of development It is due to the attempt
of a will now realizing its freedom under social
conditions to adapt itself to the will that has
hitherto directed it To some degree the sex
consciousness, which leads to viewing the parents
in a new light, may enter in. It may be easily
made permanent, however, if parents do not do
two things: first, adjust themselves and their
methods to the new social freedom of the youth,
and, secondly, fling open the doors into their true

J b, Google

The Needs of Youth 187

selves now fully understandable by these men and
women.

But the family life must make provision for the
wider friendships of youth. Somewhere this insa-
tiable appetite for the reality of lives will feed.
Groups of friends your young man and woman will
find somewhere. If they cannot bring them into
your home they will go elsewhere. You can
scarce pay any price too high for the (^portunity
that comes when they are perfectly free to have
their friends with them and with you, when home
becomes the natural place of the social meetings of
youth. K you are afraid of the wear on the furni-
ture you may keep your furniture, but you will lose
a life or lives. Here is the opportunity of the
home to enter a wider ministry, to be a place of the
joy of friendships to many lives.

S 4. AT TH& DOOS OF A KEW WOKID

As through friendships the youth enters and
eiq)lores this wonderful realm of personality he
will find some persons more wonderful than others.
Those instincts of which he is largely tmconscious
will impel him to make a selection. The same law
is operative with the young woman. Mating is
normally always first on the higher levels of person-
alities; it first calls itself friendship, nor does it
think farther. But father and mother, if they have
the least spiritual vision, stand in awe as they see

J b, Google

i88 Reugious Education in the Faiolt

their children taking their first evident steps toward
boone-making. What an opportunity is theirs I

Yet here, as the home faces its duty toward a
family yet to be, is just where some of the most
serious mistakes are made. Iliis is no time for
teasing and jesting, still less for mockii^ ridicule.
If you treat this essentially sacred step as a joke
it will not be strange if the young people follow suit
and take marriage as a yet larger joke. The home
is the place where the home b treated most irrever-
entiy. Of course one must not take too seriously
those "calf" courtships, prematurely fostered by
boys and girls, under the pressure of the high-school
tendency to anticipate all of life's riper eapeiiaices.
But even here jesting and teasing will only tend to
confirm and make permanent what would be but a
temporary aberration. In that<:ase either silence
or kindfy, simple advice will help most of all.

To young people who think at all courtsh^ has
its times of vision, when they stand trembling
before the unknown future, when they, with youth's
idealism, make high vows and stand on high places.
Give them at least the opportunity to enter your
inmost self, to find there all the light you can give
them and all the memory of your own joys and
hopes. Make them feel, though you need not say
it, that they are at the threshold of a temple. If
to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a
matter of religion to them.

J b, Google

The Needs of Yottth 189

Approached in such a temper, many of the
practical problems of courtship settle themselves.
Take the case of the young man at home. If he
knows that you think with him of the high mean-
ing of this e:q>erience he will not hesitate to bring
the young woman to the home. She will feel your
attitude. Upon this level questions of times and
seasons, hours in the parlor, and all the matters of
their relations will settle themselves. If you treat
courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just
what he most of all wants to do, treat this woman
who is to be his mate as a person, a spirit, with
reverence and love that lifts itself above lust.
This is the only grotmd upon which you can appeal
to either in matters of conduct at this time. The
conventions of society they will despise; but the
inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has
no meaning.

§ 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE

We must expect our children to go out into their
larger world. The begiiming of adolescence is the
normal time of their social awakening, their con-
version from a nature that turns in upon itself to
one that moves out into a world of persons. For
them, now, the home group ought to be seen as a
society as well as a fajnily, as the social group
gathering about a definite ideal and mission into
which they should deUght to project themselves.

J b, Google

190 RsuGious Education in the Faiulv

The at^>eal of leU^n is peculiar^ vivid just now,
for it involves a recogmtion of one's self as a person
with the power of pefsonal choices and with the
0[^rt3inity to find association with other persons.
The family must aid its young people to see the
c^portunity which the church offers for ideal
social relationshq>s which direct themselves to
high and attractive service.

§6. AlfUSEUENTS

What should the family do about the question
of the amusements of young people ?

Healthy young persons must have recreation.
They will seek it on its highest level first and find
their way down the facile descent of commercial-
ized amusements only as the Jiigber opportunities
are denied them. They would always rather play
than be played to; they would rather, where early
labor has not saiq)ed vitality, play outdoors than
sit in a fetid atmo^here watching tawdry spec-
tacles. But play, the idealization of life's espe-
rientxs, they will find somewhere. To this need
the home must minister by the provi^on of space,
time, opportunity, and the means of play. If
through either sloth, selfishness, preoccupation,
or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of life
you make recreati(m and social intercourse impos-
sible in the family, the young people will find it on
the street or in the crowd. In the family that plans

J b, Google

The Needs op Youih igr

for recreation and provides facilities and time for
' young people to play the problem is a minor one.

But young people wUl naturally desire to project
themselves into the social amusements of the larger
groups. Then we ought to know what those
amusements are; we must be able to advise, from
actual knowledge, not from hearsay or prejudice,
as to the healthful and worth while. The home
must insist on the provision in the ccanmunity for
the safe socialization of amusements. The thou-
sands of yoxmg girls in the cities, who tramp the
pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only
seeking the satisfaction of a normal craving; and
they, on their way to the dance halls, pass the
splendid plants of the schools and the churches,
standing dark and idle. Families must develop
a public opinion that will demand, for the sake of
tiieir young people, a provision for amusement and
recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall
strengthen, dignify, and elevate it. If the demand
for clean drinking-water is a proper one, is the
demand for healthful food for the life of ideals
less so?

"ITiere can be no doubt of the attitude of any
home with the least conscience for character toward
all forms of public amusei]ients in which young
people are herded promiscuously for the mere
purp>ose of killing time in trivialities. The "white
cities" with their glittering lights and baubles are

J b, Google

199 RzLiGioira Education in the Faioly

often moral plague colonies. The amusements
debase the intellect, blunt tlie moral sensibilities,
and !4^>eal to the baser passions. They are the
low-vater mark, we may hope, of commercialized
amusement. But they remind us that young
people demand ccnnpany and change from the
monotcmy of the day's toil. They ask us as
to the provision we are making foi youi^ people
and challenge us to use their inclinations for
good.

But besides these "shows" there are many dig-
nified forms of sodal recreation. Good mu^c is
to be heard and good plays are to be seen.

The theater, whether of the regular drama or of
the motion-picture type, offers a perplexing prob-
lem, principally because, in the first place, American
people have been too busy conquering a new soil
and making a living to give careful thought to
the sodal side of aesthetics and recreation, and,
secondly, because the ministry of social recreation
has fallen almost entirely under the dominance of
the same trend; it has been thoroughly commer-
cialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by
^mply prohibitii^ all forms of public theatrical
entertainment. For one reason, these forms shade
off imperceptibly from the church service to the
extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact
,is that we no longer indiscriminately class all
theaters as baneful and immoral; we are coming to

J b, Google

The Needs of Youth 193

see their potentialities for good. If the young will
go, as they will — and ought — to the theater, and
if the theater can lift their ideals, parents would
do well to guide their children in this matter and
to enlist the aid of the theater.

It is worth while to come to a sympathetic under-
standing of the place of the drama and the (^ra,
to see what they have meant in the education of the
race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact
of the strong dramatic instinct in childhood. Natu-
rally the subject can only be mentioned here and
the suggestion be offered that parents take time
to cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and
concert mu^c and of the drama.

The soda] life will find outlet in other directions.
Young people need our aid to find social groups
which will inspire and develop them, especially
groups that are serviceful.

§ 7. THE CALL TO SERVICE

This is the period when ideals begin to give
direction to the hitherto undirected activity of
childhood and youth. Young people are idealists.
They see no height too giddy, no task too hard,
no dream too roseate, and no hope unattainable.
If the times are out of joint they believe they were
"bora to set them right." Whatever is wrong or
imperfect they would take a band in settii^ it
right We know we felt that way, but we are

J b, Google

194 KxLiGious Education in the Family

loadi to believe our children also cherish theii h^h
hopes. And so the tendency of the adult is to
treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. Often
we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our
blasfi view of the world ; we would have him believe
it is a fated heap of cinders mstead of an almost
new thing to be foimed and made perfect. In the
home those ideak must be nourished and guided.
See that at hand there are the songs and essays of
the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your
Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some
of Isaiah's passion and let it breathe its fervor on
than. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and
conversation the life of ideals.

Stop long enough to see the life that like an
en^ne with steam up is surely going somewhere
and he^ it to find an engineer. We call this the
period of sowing wild oats. WM oats are simply
energies invested in the wrong places. The
dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do some-
thing. Fundamentally it would rather go to the
good than the bad. We know that this was true
of us at that time; why should we assume less of
others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers
who with open eyes and active minds — not with
sleepy fatalism — believe in their boys, have boys
who believe in them.

TTiey wait for leadership. If you have dropped
into the easy slippers of indifference to social reform

J b, Google

The Needs of Youth 195

and other types ol ideal service, get back into the
fight again beside this new man of yours.

They wait for fri^idship in this matter of their
ideals and their service. At any cost keep open
house of the heart.

They wait for a life-task. This is the period of
vocational choice. It will make a tremendous
difference to this life whether his work shall be
merely a matter of making a living or shall be his
chance to invest life in accordance with his new
ideals. Shall he go out to be merely one of the
many wage-earners or salary-winners to whom life
is a great orange from which he will get all the
juice if he can, regardless of who else goes thirsty ?
Or shall he see an occupation as his chance to pay
back to today and tomorrow that which he owes to
yesterday ? as his chance to give the world himself ?
He need not be a minister or a missionary to make
his life a ministry; he will find life, he will be a
religious person in no other way than as his
dominating motive shall be to find the fulness of
life in order to have a full life to give to God's
world. The answer will depend on what Me means
to you, how you are mterpreting it, and how you
aid hiTYi in thinking of it and making his high choice.
You will have abundant opportunity to show what
it is to you — as you have been doing all along — by
your daUy attitude ; you will have abundant oppor-
tunity to talk it all over, for he will certainly

J b, Google

196 Religious Education in the Faioly

discuss his trade or profession with you. The
family must give to the life of the new day makers
of families to whom life means a chance to realize
the God-vision of the world.

I. References ior Study
H. C. King, Personal and Ideat Elements in EducatioH, pp.

105-37. Macmillan, (1.50.
E. D. Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion, chaps, xvi-

zn. Scribner, ti.50.

n. FUXTHES RXABIHO
I. ON YOUTH

C. R. Brown, Tfu Young Man's Afairs. Crowell, $i.t».
Wayne, Building the Poung Man. McClurg, $0. 50.
Swift, Youth and the Race. Scribner, $1 . 50.
Wilson, Making the Most ofOursdves. McQurg, $1.00.

3. ON KECSEATION^

L. C. Lillle, The Story of Music and the Musicians. Harper,
$0.60.

Gustav Kobbe, Bcw to Appreciate Music. Moffat, $t . 50.

P. Chubb, Festivals and Plays. Harper, Sa . 00.

Dramatics in the Home, Children in the Theater, Problems of
Dramatic Plays, monographs published by the Ameri-
can Institute of Child Life. Philadelphia, Pa.

L. H. Gulick, Popular Recreation and Public Morality.
American Unitarian Association. Free,

M. Fowler, Morality of Social Pleasures. Longmans,
Jr. 00.

Addams, The SpirU of Youth and the City Streets. Mac-
millan, tr . 35.

J b, Google

The Needs of Youth 197

The moving-pictuie or cinema presents a problem to
parents; see Herbert A. Jump, The Sdigiom Posn-
bilities of the Motion Picture (a pamphlet) and Yaude-
viiie and Moving Pictures, a report of an investi-
gation in Portland, Ore. Reed Cc^ge Record, No, 16.

m. Topics vok Discussion

I. What are the reasons why young people leave home ?
7. Wbere do the young men and young women whom you

know ^endthnr evenings? Why is this the case ?

3. Menticm the q>edal needs of young people In the
family.

4. What are the difficulties in maintaining the friendship
of our young people ?

5. Have you ever seen evidences of the phase mentioned
as aversion to parents 7

6. What are some common mistakes of treating the sub-
ject of courtship 7

7. What are the special social needs of young people ?

8. What is the relipous significance of the period of
■odal awakening ?

9. What are the q>ecial dangerous tendencies in public
amusements ?

10. How does the social instinct express itself in social
service?

I I. What of the relation of " wild oats " to directed work ?
13. What may be done for vocational direction io the

fami^?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XVn
THE FAMILy AND THE CHUKCH

If the famfly is engaged in the development of
religious character through its life and organization,
it ou^t somehow to find very close relations with
the other great social institution engaged in pre-
, dsely the same work, the church. Both churches
and homes are agencies of religious education. In
a state which separates the ecclesiastical and the
dvil functions, where fa%edom of conscience is
fully maintained, these two are the only religious
agencies engaged in education.

As the family is the child's first society, so the
local church ^ould be the child's second, larger,
wider society. The home constitutes the first
social organization for life, the one in which growing
lives prepare for the wider soda! living. Then
should come the next forms of social organization,
the school and the church, each grouping lives
together and preparing them, by actual living, for
wider circles of life.

§ I. RELATIONS OF CHDltCH AND HOUE

Many of the perplexing problems which arise
in the family, as an institution, in respect to its
relations to the church, and as to the developiag

J b, Google

The Faiuly and the Chukch 199

relations of children to the chuich, would be largely
solved if we could get an understanding of the
fundamental relations of these two institutions.
The institutional difficulties occur because these
relations ^peat to be competitive. Here is the
family with its interests in bread-winning, com-
forts, recreations, and pleasures, and on the oppo-
site side, making apparently competing claims for
m<m^, time, interest, and service, stands the
churdi. That is the picture unconsciously forming
m many minds. There is more or less feeling
that money given to the church is taken from the
family and impoverishes it to that degree, that
time given to the church is grudgingly spared from
the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot
question which of the two institutions shall win in
the conflict of interests.

But the family must take for granted the church
as its next of kin. The home must not by its atti-
tude and conversation assume that the problems of
the relationship of children to the church arise
largely from the opposite concept, as though these
were rival institutions. We carelessly think of the
children as those who, now belonging to us, are to
be persuaded to give their allegiance to another
institution, the interests of which are in a different
^here. We think of the church as an independent
thing and therefore feel quite free to discuss its
merits or shortcomings and to criticize it if it

J b, Google

2O0 RzuGiotTS Education in the Fawly

fails to meet our standards, just as we would criti-
cize the baker for soggy or short-wd^t bread;
to our minds, the church is something set off in
society, separate from the homes, as much so as
the sdiools or the library or a fraternal lodge.

This thought of the church as a separate some-
thing, having an existence independent of ourselves
and our families, leads us farther astray and makes
yet more difficult the devel<^mient of ri^t relations
between the church and the children. If the
church is a thing apart we can analyze its imper-
fections as we ndght stand and ridicule a regiment
of raw recruits. It marches by while we stand on
the curb. But here, surely, is one of the simplest
and most ea^y forgotten truisms: the church is
no more than our own selves associated for certain
purposes. If the chiuch fails in an adequate
ministry for children, shall we condemn it as we
would a bridge that failed to carry a reasonable
load? We do but condemn oiuselves. If my
church is not fit to send my children to, then I
must he^ to make it fit. Before falling back on the
]^2y man's salve of caustic ridicule, before taking
the seat of the scornful, before setting in the child's
mind an aver^on to this institutitm, based on my
opinion, let me be sure I have done all that lies
in my power to better it. True, I am only one;
but surely, where so many family tables are each
Sunday devoted to finding fault with the church

J b, Google

The Faioly and the Chitrch 201

and its services, I can find many others who will
aid in at least stimulating a sense of personal
responsibility foi any incompleteness in the church.

The family cannot afford to take the attitude
of hostile criticism, foi it is thus fighting its first
and most natural ally, the one other institution
engaged in its own special work. If the forces for
spiritual character be divided, how easily do tlie
oppo^g forces enter in and occupy! The family
needs the support of the wider public opinion
of the church, insisting on the supremacy of ri^t-
eousness. The family needs the co-operation of
the church in its task of developing religious lives.
The family needs the power of this larger social
body controlling social conditions and making them
contributory to character purposes. The family
needs the stimulus which a larger group can give
to children and young people.

This does not mean that we must never criticize
the church. It is not set off in a niche protected
from the acid of secular tongues and minds. Minis-
ters of the gospel are unduly resentful of criticism,
perhaps because, after they 1 leave the seminary,
no one has a fair opportunity to controvert their
publicly stated opinions. But the church needs
the cleandng powers of kindly, wise, creative
criticism. Anyone can find fault, but he is wise
who can show us a better way. This church is
the family's ally; it is our business to aid her to

J b, Google

SCO Religioits Education in ihe Family

greater effectiveness. The new church for our
own day awaits the services of the men of toiday.
llie puipose of the family is the basis of alliance
with the church. As m every other relation and
puipose of the home, so here: the dominant
factor is the conscious function of the home and
family. If the home is really a rel^ous institution
it will seek natural alliance with all other truly
religious institutions. Ideally, what is a church
but a group of families associated for religious
purposes ? Is not the church sjnply a number of
families co-operating in the ideal piuposes of each
family, the develf^ment of the lives of religious
persons and the control of social conditions for the
sake of that purpose? Without entering into
disputation as to the relationship of little children
to the church, is there not just this relation to the
numan society called the church, that it is a group-
ing of families for the purpose of the divine family ?

§ 2. THE FAMILY IDEAL tN TEE CHUKCH

Would there be any question as to the natural-
ness of the relation of our children to the church if
the family ideal so controlled our thinking as to
saturate theirs ? Is not this the present need, that
both family and church shall conceive the latter
in family terms? By this is meant, not simply
that we shall think of what is called "a family
church," a church into which we succeed in pro-

jb, Google

The Fakily and the Chitrch 203

jecting our families in a lair degree of integrity, but
that we shall think of the organization and mis-
sion of the church in tenns of family life and of the
ideal of the divine family. Keeping in mind the
general definition already given of a family as
persons associated for the development of spiritual
persons, let us hold the church to that same ideal;
the lives of persons associated in the broadest
fellowship that includes both God and man for the
purposes of spiritual personality. The church
then should be the expression of that family of
which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls
God Father and man brother.

Closer and more helpful relations between
family and church follow where the principles of
the family prevail in the latter. The family is an
ideal democracy because it exists primarily for
persons. It places the value of persons first of
all. So with the true church; it will exist to
grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all
buildings, adornments, exercises, teachings, and
organizations will be but as tools, as means serving
that purpose. As the family sees its house, table,
and activities deigned to personal ends, so will the
church. In an institution existing to grow lives,
the great principle of democracy and of the family
will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most.
Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so
will the church place the child in the midst. Just

J b, Google

304 REUGn>us Education in roE Family

as the home exists for the child and thus holds to
itself all other lives, so will the church s<mie day
exist for the little ones and so hold and use all other
lives.

The prime difficult of relating the children in
our families to the average diurch lies in the fact
that they are children, while the church b an adult
institution. Its buildings are deagned for adults —
save in rare and hai^>y excqitions;' its servi<»s
are deigned for adults; it has a more or less
extraneous institution caQed a scho<^ for the chil-
dren. The church q>end3 its money for adults; it
compasses sea and land to make one proselyte
and coerce him back in old age, and allows the
many that already as chDdren are its own to drift
away. It often fails to see that if it is to grow
lives it must grow them in the growing period.
TTiere still remain many churches that must be
converted from the selfishness of adult ministry
and entertainment to self-giving service for the
development of spiritual lives and, e^>eciaUy, for
the development of such lives through childhood
and youth. They must hear again the Master's
voice regardiDg " these little ones," regarding the
^gnificance of the child. And all must be loyal
to his [Mcture ctf his Kingdom as a family and

■ See a pamphlet on Church Sckwl BuUdiugt (free) published by
the Religious Education AasodatitHi; aho B. F. Evans, Th»
Simdtiy-Sehoot BuHding and Iti Bfuipmaa.

J b, Google

The Family ai4d the Chdsch 305

must, therefoie, do what all true families do,
become child-centric. A church m which children
occupy the same place that they hold in an ideal
family will have no difficulty m finding a place
for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed
tian^doa from the family life in the home to the
family life in the church.

§ 3. A PLACE TOR ALL IN THE CHDItCH

The family may help directly toward the realiza-
tion of this ideal by an insistence on the family
conception and the family program in the diurch.
Bring the children with you to the chiKch and seek
to find there a place for each as natural as the place
he occupies in the home. If the church makes no
such provision, if it has no place for children, in the
name of our wider ^uritual family relationships
we must demand it. Let the voice of the famify be
heard insisting on suitable buildings and special^
designed worship for child-life — suitable forms of
service and activity. Let the thought that goes
to furnish these in the home be carried over to
provide them in the church.

Parents may help their children to find right
relations with the church by their attitude toward
it as the larger family group. To think and act
toward this institution as our hcone, the wider
home of the families, is to establish similar habits
of thought in children. Such a concept is not

J b, Google

3o6 Religious Education in the Fauily

always easy to main tain ; the church includes many
of different habits of thought frmn ourselves,
divergent tastes and habits of general life. Here
one must exercise the family principle of responsi-
bility toward the weaker and immature. This
family, the church, just like our own family,
exists, not to minister to our tastes, but that we
may all minister to others.

The principal service which the family may
render to the church is, then, to foster an inter-
pretation and view of the latter which will relate
it more closely to the home and will make it evi-
dently natural for child-life to move out into this
wider social organization for religious culture
and service. Surely this should be the attitude
toward membership in the church, whether that
membership begins theoretically in infancy or in
maturer years ; the child is trained to see the church
as his normal society, the group into which he
naturally moves and in which he finds his oppor-
tunity for fellowship and service. The family may
well hold that relationship steadily before its
members. In childhood the child is in the church
in the fellowship of those who leam. The Sunday
school is the spiritual family in groups discovering
the way of the religious life and the art of its
service. The fellowship grows closer and the
sense of unity deepens as the child's relationship
passes over from the passive to the active, from

J b, Google

The Family and the Chdkch 207

the involuntary to the voluntary — ^just as it does
in the home — and develops, as the child comes into
social consciousness, into a recognition of himself
as belonging to a social oiganization for q>ecific
purposes.

§ 4, CHILD UNITY WITH THE CHURCH

At some time evety child of church-attending
parents will want to know whether he "belongs to
the church." One must be very careful here,
regardless of the ecclesiastical practice, to show
the child that he is essentially one with this body,
this religious family. He may be too young to
subscribe his name to its roll, but he belongs at
least to the full measiu^ of unity appreciable by his
mind. He must not be permitted to think of
himself as an outsider. Indeed, no matter what
OUT theology may hold, every religious parent
believes that his children belong to God. Do they
not also belong to the church in at least the sense
that the church is responsible for their spiritual
welfare?

The sense of unity mvst be developed. Writing
the child's name on the " Cradle Roll" of the church
school may help. Assuming, as he develops, that
he is a part of this spiritual family, naturally
expecting that he will have an increasing share in
its life, will help more. Parents who dedicate
their children to God pass on to them the stimulus

J b, Google

2o8 RzuGioirs Education in the Fauly

of that dedication. A duircb service of dedica-
tion is likely to impress them with a feeling of
unity with the church; seeing other children so
dedicated they know that a similar occasion
occurred in their own early hves.

The forms of relationship must develop with the
nature of the child. The church needs not only a
graded curricnltmi of instruction but a graded
series of relationsh^ by which children, step
t^ step, come into closer conscious social unity,
each stq> determined by their developing needs
and capacities.

It is easy to say that the respon^bility lies with
the church to provide these methods of attachment.
But the church we have been sketching is a con-
geries of families, after all, and it will do just what
these families, particularly the parents in them,
stimulate it to do.

§ 5. INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES

But what of those instances in which parents
are convinced that the church does not furnish
a normal and healthy atmosphere for the child's
q)iritual life? There are churches where the
Sunday school is simply a training school in insub- ,
ordioation, confusion, and irreverence, or where
religion is so taught as to cultivate superstition and
to lead eventually either to a painful intellectual
reconstruction or to a barren denial of all faith.

J b, Google

The FAinLY and the Chdkch 209

Tliere are churches of one type so devoted to
the entertainment of adults, to the ministry to the
pride of the flesh and the lust of things, that a
child is likely to be trained to pious pride and
greed, or of another type, in which religion is a
matter of verbiage, tradition, and unethical
subterfuge.

Parents must be true to their respoo^bilities.
The family is the child's first religious institution.
Fathers and mothers are not only the first and most
potent quickeners and guides in the religious life,
but they are primarily resptmsible for the selection
of all other stimuli to that life. Under the drag of
our own indifference we must not withhold iiom
the child the good he would get even from the
church we do not particularly enjoy; neither dare
we, for fear of criticism ot ostracism, force the
child under influences which, in the name of
religion, would chill and prevent bis spiritual
development, would twist, dwarf, or distort it.
Responsibility to the spiritual purpose of the
family b far higher than any responsibility to a
church. The churches are ordered for the souls
of men.

What shall we do in the family when the sermon
is always tediously dull ? Don't try to force chil-
dren to go to sleep in church; they will never get
over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service
suitable for them parallel to the adult service of

J b, Google

3:o RzuGions Education in the Fauly

worship.' Next, tiy to overcome the present
popular obsession regarding the sermon. Tlie
church is more than an oratory station. The
sermon is only one incident. Many criticisms of
the sermon indicate that the critic measures the
preacher by ability to entertain, that he attends
church to be entertained. If that is essentially
your attitude, you caimot complain if your chil-
dren ore dissatisfied uitless they too are entertained
according to their childish f^petites. When the
sermon is poor, put it where it belongs propor-
tionately and enlarge on the many good features
of church fellowship and service.

In a word, let the church be to the family that
larger home where families live together their life
of fellowship and service in the spirit and purpose
of religion and where there is a natural place
.for everyone.

I. RZJEXZNCES lOR StODY

H. W. Hulbert, The Church and Her ChOdrm, chi^n. i-v.

Revell, $1.00.
H. F. Cope, Efficiency in the Stttiday School, chaps, riv-

zvL Doian, (i.oo.
George Hodges, Training of ChOdren in Religion, chap. xiv.

Appleton, $1 . 50.

■ See the wOiot's niggestioa for the Sunday school b Effi-
aency in Uu Staiday School, dutp. xv.

J b, Google

The Famttv and the Chukch 2ix

II. FUKTHEK ReADINO

A. Hoben, The Minisltr and the Boy. The Univer^ty of

Chicago Press, Si.oo.
£. C. Foster, The Boy and the Church. Sunday School

Tunes Co., to. 75.
G. A. Coe, BducoHon in Rdigiott and Morals, Part 11.

ReveU,Jr.35.

in. Topics ?os Discussion

1. What are the qtecial common interests of church and

2. What ate the fundamental relationshqis of the two P

3. What conception of the church ought to be fostered
in the children's minds ?

4. When is criticism of the church unwise?

5. What changes might be made in church life for the
sake of the children ?

6. What changes would bring the church and the liome
closer together P

7. What should be the children's conception of unity
with the church ?

8. Should children attend, in family groups, the church
service of worship ?

9. Does the plan of a short service for children meet
the need?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XVm
CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL

Viiae parents vill know the character of the
influences affecting their children at all times.
At no time can their responsibility be delegated to
otheis. There is a tendency to think that when
children go to school the family has a release from
responsibility. But the school is amply the
coimnunify — the group of families — syndicating
its efforts for the formal training of the young.
Every family ought to know what the commtmity
is doing with its children. Tlie school belongs
to all; it b not the property of a board, nor a
private machine belonging to the teaching force;
it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as
a family obligation to understand its work and its
influence on the children.

Parents ought to visit the school. Wise princi-
pals and teachers will welcome them, setting times
when vi^ts can best be made. The victors come,
not as critics, but as citizens and parents. The
principal benefits will be an acquaintance with the
teachers of our children and a better understand-
ing of the conditions under which the children work
for the greater part of the day. By far the larger
number of teachers most earnestly desire char-

jb, Google

Chudken and tee School 313

acter results fiom their work. It will help them
to know that we are interested in what they are
doing.

§ I. HOUE AND SCHOOL CO-OPEKATION

Parents and teachers, both desirii^ spiritual
results, can find means of co-operation. Parent-
teacher clubs and associations tiave done much
to bring the home and the school together. Meet-
ing regularly in the evemi^, so that fathers, too,
can attend, gives opportunity to work out a com-
mon understanding to raise the ^iritual aims of
the school, and to discover means by which the
families may aid in securing better conditions for
school work.

One of the most important considerations
relates to the moral effect of the school life and
environment. We are committed in this country
to the principle that the public school cannot
teach religion, but this by no means relieves it of
responsibility for moral character. The family
needs this ally. Children expect instruction in
the school and they feel keenly the power of its
ideals and the standards established by its methods
and requirements. The family and the school
greatly need to co-ordinate their efforts here to
the end that there may be under way in both
an orderly program for the moral training of
children.

J b, Google

314 Reugious Education in the Faicly

§ 3. the scsool teaching pasents
The school may he^ the hcone if arrai^emaits
are made for pareats to meet regularly and receive
instruction in those forms of moral training which
can best be given at home. Hiis is one method of
solving the vezed question of sex instruction.
Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such instruction
in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be
and could be given in families but for the fact
that parents are both ignorant of what to tell and
indifferent to the matter. It may be that some
day the state will not only say that the child must
go to school, but also that every parent intrusted
with chUdira must either prove ability to train and
instruct in these and other matters or go to school
to obtain the necessary training. The state would
not go beyond its province if it required ignorant
parents — and that means most of us in matters
of moral training — to go to school and learn our
business. And without waiting for such conq>uI-
sion the school may now offer opportunity for all
parents to obtain the desired information. Teach-
ers are especially trained to an understanding of
child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they
are prepared to teach many things we ought to
know; why should not the family obtain the
advantage of such expert knowledge?

The school would also be within its province if it
undertook to stimulate the indifferent parents,

J b, Google

ChILDSXN AMD THE SCHOOL 21$

both rich and poor, to an appredatioa of the
educational task and opportxmily of the home.
Each institution greatly needs the other, llie
school reaches all the children of all the people;
mi^t it not be made a larger means of helping
all the parents of all the children to quickened
moral responsibility and to greater educational
^Sdency?

$ 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS
Tlie family ought to know the conditions at the
school outside the recitation or working hours.
Few parents have any conception of the power of
the playground over moral character. Perhaps a
smaller number realize how dangerous are some
of the elements at work there. Play of itself is
inunensety valuable, but play means playfellows,
and some of these are simply purveyors of inde-
cency and moral contagion in conversation and
act We are required to send our children to
school; we have a right to demand freedom from
moral contagion. Do you know what goes on in
secret places on the grounds ? Do you know that
the vilest ideas and phrases are current in pictures,
cards, on scraps of paper, and in handwriting on
walls, not only in the high schook, but often among
children of from six to twelve years of age ? This
is too large a subject to be developed properly
here. It is one familiar to all wide-awake school

J b, Google

2i6 Reu^ous Education in the Family

men and women and onght to be equaify so to tlie
paroits of children. Where the school comhats this
evil the home should intelligently aid; where the
school is indifferent the family dare not rest until
dther the indifference is qiute di^xUed or the
indiff erait dismissed.

Do not ez3>ect to get the facts concerning these
suggested conditions by inquiry among your
chfldren. They are reticent, naturally, on such
matters when taOung with adults; besides, the
sense of school honor holds them to silence. If
they tell you voluntarily, you are haK)y in their
free confidence. Do not betray it; dn^ly let it
lead you to make further inquiry at the sduxd from
the authorities and stimulate you to insist that,
for the sake of the ^iritual good of the young, the
sdiool must furnish conditions of moral health.

I. Reterzhces roE Study
Ella Lyman Cabot, Vohmtary Sdp to the Sduxds, chilis.

viijviii. Houston Mifflm Co., 9o. 60.
W. A. Baldvin, "The H<HDe and the Public Schools,"

RtUpous EducaHoa, Fdbmary, 191a. $0.65.

n. FUXTHEE ReADQTO

U- Sadler, Moral Iiutniction and Traming in Schools.

2 vols. Longmans.
John Dew^, The School and Society. The Univeisity of

Chicago Press, $1.00.
Siaa\h.AUtheaadrenoJAUthePeo^. Macmillui,$i,so.

J b, Google

CmUDSEN ASD THE SCHOOL 217

G. A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," Religioui Educatioti,
Febiuaiy, 191a.

m. Tones ?0R Discussion
I. What ouf^t parents to know about public-school life ?
a. In visiting a school what may the parent do to
acquire information in the piopei way ?

3. How may the home co-operate with the school?

4. What degree of instiuctioQ in morals ou^t the
school to 1^ ?

5. In what way does the school best help in mc»vl
training?

6. What do you know about the conditions on the
playgrounds of youi own school ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XK

DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES
Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply
as we may desire to Tnaintftin an even tenor of
character-development, in harmony and quietness,
occasions will bring either our own imperfections
or those of our children — or of our neighbors'
children — to a focus and throw them in high relief
on the screen. Progress comes not alone in per-
petual placidity. When temper slips from con-
trol, when angry passions rule, when the spirit
under discipline rebels, when a course of petty
wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret ^ns
are discovered, and when we sudden^ find our-
selves confronted with a tragic problem in the
higher life, it b still important to remember that
the crisis is just as truly a part of the educa-
tional process as is the orderly, gradual method of
development.

A moral criMs is an experience in which our acts
are such, or have such results, that they are thrown
out in a white li^t that reveals their inner mean-
ing, so that they are sharply discerned for their
spiritual and character values. Then in that light
courses of conduct have to be valued anew,
reconsidered, and determined.

J b, Google

Dealing with Mokal Csises 219

Two courses ate open in times of moral crisis
in the family. One is to bend our efforts to settle
the atuation, to proceed on the policy of getting
through with the crisis as quickly as possible, to
seek to remove the pain rather than to cure the
iU. The other is to regard the crisis as a revealer
of truth, to use it as a valuable opportunity,
one in which moral qualities of acts are so easily
evident, so keenly felt, as to make it a time of
spiritual quickening, a chance for the best sort of
training.

§ I. THE PEOIOSE OF lUPERFECTION

The perfect child is the one unborn; shortly
after his birth he begins to take after his father.
The perfect character does not exist in a child. It
is as imreasonable to expect it as it would be to
look for the perfect tree in the sapling. Character
comes by development; it Is not bom fuU-blown.
Childhood implies promise, development. TTiere-
fore parents must not be surprised at evidences
that their children are pretty much tike their
neighbors' children. Outside of the old-time
Sunday-school-library book the child who never
lied, lost his temper, sulked, or made a disturbance
never existed and never will, except in a psycho-
pathic ward in some hospital. , Could anything be
sadder than the picture of the anemic, pulseless
automaton who is always "good" ?

J b, Google

230 RxxiGious Education in the Faioly

Wheh parents speak of the "natuia! depravity"
of their cbildreQ, they are commonly using terms
they do not understand. What they mean.is the
natural immaturity of thdr children, a condition
of imperfection in which they may rejoice, as it
shows the possibility of development The child
is in the world to grow to the fulness of all his
powers. The powers of the higher life are to
develop as truly as those which we call physical
and mental. The family is the great human
culture-bed for the development of those powers,
their training-field and schooL

Does someone say, concerning a little child,
"But we thought he had the grace of God in his
heart, that he had been bom again and would no
more do wrong" ? True, he may be bom again,
but there b a world of difference between being
bom and being grown up. From one to the other,
in the realm of character, is a long and tedious
process, with many a stumble, many a fall, many
a hard knock, and many a lesson to be learned.
Every moral crisis is part of the struggle, the experi-
ence and training that may make toward the
matured life. You have no more right to expect
your child to be a mature Christian than you bad
to expect him to be bom six feet talL

A moral crisis is a lesson. The important con-
sideration for the parent, then, is to see the wrong-
doing of the child as an experience in his moral

J b, Google

Dealing with Mokal Cbises 321

upward climb', not as a fall alone, but as part of
tlie acquisition of the art of standing upright and
walking forward. Dealing with such an occasion
one may well say to himself or herself, "This is
my chance to guide, to make this experience a light
that shines forward on the way for the child's
weak feet and to strengthen him to walk in it."
For is it not true with us that practically all we
leally know has come by the organizing of our
different experiences ? Think whether it is so or
noL And is it not to be the same with the child ?
We can study here only a few t3'pical moral
crises, perhaps those that give greatest perplexity
to parents. They cannot be successfully met as
isolated instances, but must be seen as a part of
the whole educational process. Those to whom
the development of character is a reality will
watch tendencies and train them before they
focalize in crises.

§ 2. THE collision OF WILLS

Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains;
it is rife with temptations. It offers a little world
for autocracy to vaunt itself. The martinets
command, often totally ' blind to the changing
nature of the subjects as they pass from the sub-
missive to the rebellious. One day the parents
wake up to realize that they are not the only ones
possessed of will.

J b, Google

233 RJEXIGIOUS EDUCATIOH XN THE FaIOLY

When to your Yes the child says No, while
you may uot ^)plaud, you ought to rejoice; you
have discovered a will, you have found devel<^>ing
Id your child the central and essential quality of
character. ForgiveDess vill be hard to find and
recovery still more difficult if you make the mistake
of attempting to crush that will. The child needs
it and you will need its co-opeiation. The power
to see the pos^ility of choice of action, to know
one's self as a choosing, willing entity, able to elect
and follow one among many courses of action, is
a distinctive, Godlike quality. The opposition
of wills is like the birth of a new personality, a
new force thrown out into the world to meet
and stiugg^ and adjust itself with all other
persons.

When the coUiaon comes, take a few long breaths
before you move; take time to think what it means.
Keep your temper. Do not break before the other
will by an exhibition of chagrin that your authori^
is defied. From now on the basis of any real
authority is being transformed from force and
tradition to a moral plane.
.' Therefore, first, be sure you are right in your
direction or request You cannot afford to make
the child think that authority is more important
than justice, that might makes right in the sodal
order of the home. If you do he will accept the
lesson and practice it all his life.

J b, Google

Deauno tvitr Moral Csises 233

Remember the right has many elements. There
is the child's side to consider. As soon as be can
dedde on courses of action bis ideas of justice are
developing. To do him an injustice is to be^
make bim an unjust man.

Secondly, help bim to see tbe right. This will
involve sympathetic explanations of your reasons
which you may have to give in the form of simple
arguments or of a story, perhaps from your own
experience, or by an appeal or reference to the
wider knowledge of the older children. It may
be necessary to let him team in tbe effective school
of experience. Other means failing, allow him |
to discover the pain and foUy of his own way when {
it is wrong. Of course this does not apply if be
is minded, for instance, to imbibe carbolic acid.
But even in such circumstances it would be better
to prove his unwisdom by demonstration — as a »
drop of acid on a finger tip — than to let the issue
rest on blind authority. One such demonstration
gives a new, intelligible ba^ to your authority in
other cases.

Thirdly, help bim to will tbe right. Help bim >
to feel that be must choose for himself, to recognize
the power of tbe will and the grave responsibilities
of its use. He is entering the realm of the freedom
of the will. Every act of deliberate choice, with
your aid, in a sense of tbe seriousness of choice,
goes to establish tbe character that does not drift,

J b, Google

334 RXUOIODS EDUC4II0H IN THE FaULY

is not dragged, and will not go save with its whole
selfhood of feeling, knowing, choodng, and willing.

§ 3. ANGES

An angiy child is a child in rebellion. Rebel-
lion is sometimes justifiable. Anger may be a
virtue. You would not take this force out of
your child any more than you would take the
temper out of a knife or a spring. Anger mani-
fested vocally or muscularly b the child's form of
protest But, established as a habit of the life,
it is altc^ther unlovely. Who does not know
grown-up pe<^le who seem to be inflexibly angry;
either th^ are in perpetual eruption or the fires
smoulder so near the surface that a pin-prick sets
them loose. Usually a study of their cases will
show either that the attitude of angry opposition
to everything in life has been established and
fostered from infancy or that it was acquired in
the adolescent period-

The angry, antisocial person is most emphatically
an irreligious person;- there can be no love of his
brother man where that ^irit is. The home is the
place where this ill can best be met and cured, for it
deals most directly with the infant, and for the ado-
lescent it is the best school of normal social living.

Let no one think the angry demonstrations of
little childrai are negligible or that they have
nothing to do with the religious character of the

J b, Google

Dealing wteb Moral Cbises 335

diild or the adult. They are important for at
least two reasons, first, as fUmishing the angiy
cme opportunity to acquire self-control, to master
bis own spirit, and, secondly, because they disturb
tlie peace and interfere with the well-being of others.

It is pos^k to set up habits of anger in the (,
cradle. In the first instance the infant encountered }
ofqxtsition in the cradle and proceeded to conquer \
it by yelling, and so, day after day, he found anger /
the only route to the satisfaction of his desires. '
He grew to take all life in terms of a bitter struggle
and every person became his natural enemy.

!bi the case of the adolescent it sometimes hap-
pens that a boy or a girl will make a very tardy
passage through the normal experience of social
aver^on, the time when they seem to suspect all
other pec^le, to flee from social mtercourse and to
sulk, to want to be off in a comer alone. This is
a normal phase of adolescent adjustment, coming
at thirteen or fourteen, but it ought to pass quickly.
A few allow this period to become lengthened;
they fail to regain social pleasure and soon drift
into habits of social emnity. This may be due to
scolding at this period, or to a lack of healthful
faiendships.

§ 4. METHODS OF DEALING WITH ANGEK

It is evident that talking, lecturing, or arguing
with the angry infant will not help the case. He

J b, Google

a 36 RxuGious Education m tee Famzly

may feel the emotion (^ your anger but misses
any shieds of your logic. Parents ought first to
ask, Why b an infant angiy? \t^th the infant,
with whom tbete are no pretensions or affections,
there is commonly a ample cause of his rebellion.
The haby yelling like an Indian and looking like
a boiled lobster is neither possessed of an evil
^irit nor ^ving an exhibition (rf natural depravity;
he is lying on a pin, wearing the shackles of faddish
infant fashions, or he is trying to tell you of disturb-
ances in the department of the interior. Furnish
{^ysical relief at once and you put a period to the
display of what you call temper; tiy to subdue
him by threats and you only discover that his
, lungs are stronger than your patience; you yield
at last and he has learned that temper properly
displayed has its reward, that the way to get what
' he wants b to upset the world with anger. That is
' one of life's early less(ms; it b one of the first
exercises in training character.

Consider the fitture. Each family b a social
unit, a little world. Within thb world are in
miniature nearly all the stru^es and e^>eriences
of the larger world of later life. It b a world which
prepares children for living by actually living.
Ilie qualities tliat are needed in a world of men and
womai and affairs are developed here. When
young children exhibit anger parents must ask.
How would this quahty, under similar drcum-

jb, Google

Dealing with Mosal Ckises 337

stances, serve in the business of mature life?
Anger is an essential quality of the good and force-
ful character. Somehow we have to learn to be
angry and not sin. Anger is the emotional feeling
of extreme discontent and oiqiosition. For the
stem fight against evil and wrong, life needs this
emotional reinforcement. But it must be purified,
it must be> controlled. Like the dynamic of steam,
it must be confined and guided. Love must free
it from hatred; self-control must guide it.

When children are angry, help them to think out
the causes for the feeling. Instead of denouncing
or deriding them, stop to analyze the situation for
yourself. It may be that they are entirely justi-
fied, that not to be angry would be an evidence of
weakness, of base standards of conduct or c<mdi-
tions, <w of weak reactions to Ufe's stimuli. Always
help the child to see why he is angry. Perhaps
the situation is one he may remedy himself. Is he
angry because the top-string is tangled? Stay
with him until he has learned -that he can remove
the cause of his own temper.

Step by step, dealing with each excitement of
anger, train kirn in self-control. Self-mastery is a
' matter of learning to direct and apply our own
powers at will. It is developed by habitual prac-
tice. It is the largest general element in character,
llie temper that smashes a toy is the temper that
kills a human being when it opposes our will, but

J b, Google

328 Reugious Education in xhb Fakily

it is the same temper that, being controlled,
patiently sets the great ills of society right, fights
and worics to remove gigantic wrongs and to build
a better social order. That patience which is
self-coDtrol saves the immensely valuable dynamic
of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike
service. And that patience is not learned at a
single lesson, not acquired in a miraculous moment;
it is learned in one little lesson after another, in
every act and all the daily discipline of home and
school and street

Children must learn to qualify and govern
tenq>er by love in order to save it from hatred.
When the irritating object is a personal one the
rights, the weU-being, of that one must gain some
ccoisideTation. There will be but httle feeling
of altruism in children under thirteen; we must
not expect it; but egoism is one way to an under-
standii^ of the rights, the feelings, and needs of
others. The child can put himself in the other's
place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is
willing to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he
is angry with them, or with strangers, he must be
helped to think of them as persons, as those -he
loves or may love. He also can be aided to see the
pain of hatred, the misery of the life without
friends, the joy of friendships.

Anger against persons is the opportunity for
learning the joy of forgiveness and, if the occasion

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Cbises 229

warrants, the dignity and courage of the apology,
llie self-control, consideration, and social adjust-
ment involved must be learned early in life. It
is part of that great lesson of the fine art of living
with others. Little children must be habituated
to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or
temper with suitable forms of apology. Above
all, they must, by habit, leam how great is the
victory of forgiveness.'

I. Retekences tor Stddy
The Problem of Temper. Pamphlet. American Institute

of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.
E. P. St. John, Chad Nature and Child Nurture, chap. v.

Pilgrini Press, to. 50.
J, Sully, CkUdren's Ways, chap. z. Appleton, Si. 35.

n. FuRTHEi Reading
Patterson Du Bois, The Culture of Justice, chaps, i-v.

Dodd, Mead & Co., lo. 75.
E. H. Abbott, The Trailing of Parents. Houghton Mifflin

Co., $1.00.
M. Wood-Allen, Maki«g the Best of Our CkiMrea. 2 vols.

McCluig, Si.ooeach.
H. Y. Campbell, Practical Motherhood. Longmans, la. 50.

m. Topics tor DisctJssioN
I. What special opportunities are offered in the rise of

moral crises?

3. Do we tend to eipect too high a development of

character in children?

■ See Gow, Good Morals and Gentle Manners, chap. viii.

J b, Google

230 RxuGious Education in the Family

3. K>w eail7 in life do we have manifestations of a
conscknu will ?

4. What constitutes the importance of early crises of
thewiU?

5. What aie probably the causes when children habitu-
ally defy authority ?

6. Is anger always a purely mental condition 7

7. What in^tortance have the angry demonstrations of
infants?

8. What is the relation of the <x}ntrDt of temper to the
rij^tly developed life ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XX

DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (Continued^
§ I. QUABSELS

A child who never quarrels probably needs to
be examined by a physician; a child who is always
quarreling equally needs the physician. In the
first there is a lack of sufficient mergy so to move
as to meet and realize some of life's oppositions;
in the other there is probably some underlying cause
for nervous irritability.

It is perfectly natural for healthy people to
differ; in childhood's realm, where the values and
proportions of life are not clearly seen, where social
adjustments have not been acquired, the differences
in opinions, as in possessions, lead to the ezpresdon
of feeling in sharp and emphatic terms. Rivalry
and conflict are natural to the young animal.
Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any
more than adults; they are only less diplomatic
in their language, more direct, and more likely to
follow the word with attempts at force.

In few things do parents need more patience than
in dealing with children's quarrels. First, seek
to determine quietly the merits of the cause; but
do not attempt to pronounce a verdict. It is
seldom wise to act as judge unless you aUow the

J b, Google

232 Religious Education in the Faioly

childrai to act as a juiy. But ascertain whether
the quarrel is an expression somewhere of anger
against injustice, wrong, or evil in some form.
Sometimes their quanels have as much virtue,
as our crusades. It is a sad mistake to quench
the feeling of indigoation against wrong or of
hatred against evil. A boy will need that emo-
tional backing in tus fights against the base and
the foes of his kind. While rejoicing in his feel-
ing, show him how to direct it, train him to dis-
criminate between hatred of wrong and bitterness
toward the wrongdoer. Help him to see the good
that comes from lovii^ people, no matter what
they do.

Our methods of dealing with a quarrel will do
more to develop their sense of justice than all our
decisions can. Be sure to get each one to state
all the facts; insist on some measure of calmness
in the recital. Keep on sifting down the facts
until by their own statements the quarrel b seen
stripped of pas^on and standing clear in its own
light. Usually that course, when kindly pursued
and followed with syn^athy for the group, with
a saving sense of humor, will result in the voluntary
acknowledgment of wrong. The boys — or girls —
Iiave for the first time seen their acts, their words,
their course, in a light without prejudice. They
are more ready to confess to being mistaken than
are we when convinced against our wishes.

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Csises 333

When no acknowledgment of wrong is proffered
volunt^ily, we must still not offer a verdict. Put
the case to the contestants and let them settle it.
Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when abso-
lutely necessary to insist on exact statements of
fact That course should be excellent trainmg
in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other
man's side, in the deliberation that saves from
unwise accusations and the serioUs quarrels of later
life. Teach children to think through their differ-
ences.

The perpetually petulant child, bickering with
all others, should be taken to a physician. Get
him ri^t nervously, physically, first. He is out
of harmony with himself and so cannot find har- .
mony with others. When the condition of habitual
bickering seems to afSlct all the children in the
family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a
mysterious dispensation of natural depravity. The
probability is that the home life is without harmony
and full of discord, that the parents are themselves
petulant and more anxious to assert their separate
opinions than to find unity of action. Nothing
is more effective to teach children peaceful living
than to see it constantly before them in their
parents. A harmonious home seldom has quarrel-
some children. Such harmony is a matter of
organization and management of a£airs as much
as of our own attitude.

J b, Google

354 Rxinaous Education in the Family

Some children are educated to a life of quarrels
by being trained in the family that spoils them.
The angle child is at a great disadvant^e; he
occupies the throne alone. His home life becomes
a mere series (^ ^x^es radiating from himself.
When he finds the world ordered otherwise, he
quarrels with it and tries to rearrange the ^>okes
into a new, self-centric social order. Whatever
the number of children may be, each one must
team to live with other lives, to adjust himself
to them. Neighboring social play and activities
are the chance for this. Do not try to keep Alger-
lum in a glass case; be needs the world in which he
will have to live some day.

§3. riGHTIHO

Hie best of men are likely to have a secret satis-
faction in their boys' fights, and the bravest of
mothers will deplore them. The fathers know
how bard are the knocks that life b going to gjve;
the mothers hope that the boys can be saved from
blows. A man's life is often pretty much of a
fight, every day struggling in competiticm and
rivahy; we have not yet learned the lesson of
co-operation, and we still tend to think of buaness
as a battlefield. Something in us calls for fighting;
we have to use the utmost strength at our command
to fight the evil tendencies of our own hearts; often
we rejoice in life as a confiict. It feels good to

J t>; Google

Dealing with Moral Cbises 235

find causes worth fighting for. If all this is true
of the man, it is not strange that the small boy,
scarce more than a young savage, will find <^>por-
tunities for conflict He is more dependent on
the weapons of force than b bis father. He cannot
cast out the enemy with a ballot, nor with a sneer
or biting sarcasm, nor by some device or strategy
of business or affairs. He can only hit back.
Taken altogether, boys settle their differences as
honestly at least as do men.

Moreover, children's fights are not as cruel as
they seem to be; even the bloodshed means little
either of pain or of injury. A boy may be badly
banged up today and in full trim tomorrow; it
is quite different with the wounds bloodlessly
inflicted by men in their conflicts.

Does aU this mean that boys should be encour-
aged to fi^t? No; but it does mean that when
Billy conies home with one eye apparently retired
from business, we must not scold him as though
he were the first wanderer frcun Eden. That
fight tuay have been precisely the same thing as a
croquet game to his sister, or any test of skill to
his big brother, or a business transaction to his
father; it was a mere contest of two healthy bodies
at a time when the body was the outstanding fact
of life. The fight may give us our chance, however,
to aid him to a sense of the greatness of life's
conflict, to a sense of the qualities that make the

J b, Google

^^6 RzuGious Education in tbe Fawly

tnie fighter. It may leave him open to the appeal
of trae beioism. We miist make light of the vic-
toiy of brute strength, just as we may make light
of his wounds and scars, and glorify the victoiy of
the mind and will.

The boy who fights because he lacks control of
temper needs careful training. He gets a good
deal of discipline on the playground and street, but
it is not always effective; the beatings may only
further undermine control. But the lack of self-
omtrol will manifest itself in many ways and must
be remedied at all points. The discipline of daily
living in the family must come into play here.

§ 3- SELF-CONTROL

Tlie matter of self-c<Hitrol is not separable into
special features; one cannot learn control under
one set of moral circumstances without learning
it for all Tlie boy who strikes without thinking
is amply one who acts without thinking. He
tends to throw away the brakes of the will. The
regain of control comes only through training at
every point in deliberation of action.

Probably there is no other point at which chil-
dren so frequently and readily learn control as
in the matter of speech. The family where all
speak at once, where a babel of sounds leads to a
rivalry of vocal organs, is not only a nuisance to
the neighbors, it is a school of uncontrolled action

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Cbises 237

to the childreQ. Just to learn to wait, even after
the thought is fonned into words, until it shall be
my turn 01 my opportunity to speak is a fine
discipline of control. To do that every day, year
after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger
process of action.

Control is gained also by the acquisiticui of the
habit of thought regarding general courses of
action. We can hardly expect meditation on the
part of little children. But those who are older,
those entering their teens, may and should be
able to think things out, to plan out the day's
actions, to determine their own ways of conduct
Children who have the custom of quiet, private
prayer often develop ability to see their conduct
in the calm of those moments. They get a mental
elevation over the day and its deeds.

§4. GOOD FIGHTS

The evident danger of undue deliberation
of action mast be met by another cure of the
personal-conflict spirit; that is, the substitution of
games of rivalry and skill for the unorganized
rivalry and "igame" of fighting. The transition
from the bloody arena to the excitement of a game
is very easy and natural. But the game is the
boy's great chance to learn life as a game to be
played according to the rules. All that the fight
calls for — courage, endurance, skill, quickness of

J b, Google

338 Reu(HO0S Education in the Famut

actum, and grim persistence — comes out in a good
game. Here is a suitable youthful reaJizatioQ of
die fight that is worth waging. Our participation
in the youths' games, our ^predation of their
points, our joy in honestty won success, is the best
possible way to lead up to their taking life in terms
of a good fight, a grand game, a real chance to call
out the heroic qualities. Turn every fighting
instinct into the good fight that will clarify and
elevate them alL

I. RlVEEENCKS FOR STUDY

W. L. Sheldon, Etkia mc tht Home, chapa. zi, zii, ziiL '

Welch & Co., $1.35.
E. A. Abbott, Trainint of ParetOs, chap. v. Houghton

Mifflin Co., $1.00.

n. FUBTHES RxADOtO

EUa "Lyman Cabot, Eeery Day Etkks. Holt, $1. 35.
M. Wood-AUen, M<^ng the Beit of Our CkUdnm. a vob.
McCluig, $1.00 each.

m. Topics for DisctrssKm
I. Do &U children quanel? Should one punish for

iPHftll quarrels?

J. What are the facts which ought to be ascertained

regarding any quarrel 7

3. What q>edal opportimities do childrea's difieiences
offer?

4. What are the causes of habitual petulance ? What
Bie the dangers of this habit of mind ?

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Guises 339

5. Is fighting necessarily wrong 7 What part does it play
in the lives of men ?

6. What are the dangerous elements in boys' fights ?

7. What special quality of character needs development
in this connection?

S. What are tlie valuable possibilities in the fighting
tmdency?

uigni'ob, Google

CHAPTER XXI

DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (Com/mnmO

§ I. LYING

Parents are likely to be wilfully blind to the
faults of their children. But some faults cannot
be ^ored; they must surely quick^i the most
indifferent parent to thou^t. We suffer a shock
when our own child appears as a wilful liar.

"What shall I do when I catch the child in an
outright lie ? Surely he knows that is wrong and
that he is wilfully doing the wiongl "

First, be sure whether he is "lying." Lying
means a purposeful intent to deceive by word of
mouth or written word. When Charles Dickens
wrote Oliver Twist he described a burglary that
never happened, so far as he knew. He int^ided
the reader to feel that it was true. Was he lying ?
No; because he simply used his imagination to
paint a scene which was part of a great lesson he
desired to teach the English public. Even had he
had no great moral purpose, it would still not have
be^ a lie, just as we do not accuse the writer of even
the most frivolous novel of lying. He is simply
creating, or imitating, in the field of imagination.

Im^jnation is the child's native world. When
the little girl says, " My dolly is sick," she is saying

.b, Google

Dealing with Moral Cbises 241

that which is not so, but instead of reproving her
for lying, you prepare an imaginary pill for the doll.
Many children's lies are singly elaborations of
their doll- and plaything-imaginings. When my
little daughter told me, and insisted upon it, that
she had seen seven bears, of varied colors, on the
avenue, should I have reproved her for lying?
Was it not better to humor her fancy, to draw it
out, to give it free play, being careful gradually to
let her know that I knew it was fancy P I entered
into the game with her and enjoyed it so long as
we all understood it was only fan<y. It is a crime
to crush a child's power of creating a world by
imagination, 3 fair world, set in the midst of this
world where things are imperfect, jarring, and dis-
appointing, a world in which everything is always
"just so."

But one must also carefully aid the child in
distinguishing between the world of fancy and
the world of fact. This takes time and patience.
We must not rob the life of fancy nor must we
allow the habits of freedom with ideas to pass
over into habits of carelessly handling reaUties.
Along with the development of fancy we must
train the powers of exact observation and state-
ment of facts. The child who saw sevrai bears,
red, green, yellow, etc., must go to see real bears
and must tell me exactly their colors and forms.
Daily training in exactitude of statements of real

J b, Google

343 RxuGious Educahom m tbe Fakily

facts is the best aotidote for a fancy that has run
out of its bounds. It establishes a habit of pre-
ciaoQ in thinking which is the essence of truth-
telling.

$a. PKOTECnVE LYING

But there b another form of lying which is fre-
quently met in some form. It may be called
protective lying. Ask the little fellow with the
jam-smeared face, "Have you been in the pantry ? "
and he is likely to do the same thing that nature
does for the birds when she gives them a coat that
makes it ea^ei to hide from their enemies. He
valiantly answers "No, Mother." He would
protect himself from your reproof, fliere has
been awakened before this the desire to seem
good in your eyes and he desires your approbation
most of all. The moral struggle with him is very
brief; he does not yet distinguish between being
good and seeming good; if his negative answer
will help him to seem good he will give it.

What shall we do ? First, stop long enough to
remember that ^petites for jam ^eak louder
than your verbal prohibitions. Tbe jam was
there and you were not. It can hardly be said
that he deliberately chose to do a wrong; he is
still in the process of learning how to do things
deliberately, just as you still are, for that matter.
Consider whether your training of the anti-jam
habit has been really conscientious and sufficient

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Cbises 243

to establish the habit in any degree. It were wiser
to ask these things of yourself before patting the
fateful question to him. It would be better not to
ask a small child that question. It demands too
much of him. Besides, you are losing a chance
to establish a valuable idea in his mind, namely,
that acts usually cany evidences along with them.
Better say, "I see you've been in the pantry."
That will he^ to establish the habit of expecting
our acts to be known. Then would follow with
the httle child the careful endeavor to train him
to recognize the acts that are wrong because harm-
ful, greedy, against the good of others, and against
his own good.

Just here parents, especially many religious
parents, meet the temptation thoughtlessly to use
God as their ally by reminding the child' that,
though they could not see him in the pantry, God
was there watching him. In the vivid memory of
a childhood clouded by the thought of a police-
detective Deity, may one protest against this act
of irreverence and blasphemy? True, God was
there; but not as a spy, a reporter of all that is
bad, anxious to detect, but cowardly and cruel in
silence at all other timesi Let the child grow up
with the happy feeling that God is always with
him, rejoicing in his play, his well-aimed ball, his
successes in school, his constant friend, helper, and
confidant I like better the God to whom a little

J b, Google

344 Religious Education in the Family

fellow in Montana prayed the other day, "O God,
I thank you for hewing me to lick BQly Johnson I"
The child of the pantry needs to know ths God who
will he^ him to do and know the right

§ 3. OLDEK CEIIDEEN

But protective lying presents a more serious
problem with older children. The school-teacher
and parent meet it, just as the judge and the em-
ployer meet it in adults. The cure lies eaiiy in
life. Truth-telling is as much a habit as lying is.
Perli^>8 it is more easily practiced; its drafts are
on the powers of observation and memoiy rather
than on those of imagination. Along with the
child's imaginative powers there must be developed
the powers of exact observation and desciqition.
Exact observation and description or relation are
but parts of the larger general virtue of precision.
Help children at every turn of life to be ri^t —
right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying,
and in execution. Precision at any point in life
helps lift the life's whole level. Truth-telling is
not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy
truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. Vou
cannot expect he will speak the truth if you do not
train him to do the truth, in his play, in ordering
his room, in tiiinking through his school problems,
and in thinking through his rel^ous difficulties.
Truth-telling is the verbal reaction of the life

J b, Google

Deaung wtth Mokal CstsES 345

which habitually holds that nothing is right until
it is just ri^t.

Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a
truthful statement, instead of a protective lie, in
answer to your question: first, that the young
person has been trained to the habit of sedng and
stating things as they are — and that you really
give him a chance so to state them, and, secondly,
that to some degree there has been developed a
recognition of considerations or values that are
bi^er than either tscdipe from punishment or the
winning of your approbation. He will choose the
course that offers what seems to him to be the
greater good; he will choose between punishment,
with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity
with the higher good, of peace with God his friend,
a greater approximation to your ideal, on the one
side, and, on the other, escape from punishment.

Everything in that crisis will depend on how real
you have made the good to be, how much the saise
of the reality of God and his companionship has
brought of joy and friendsh^, and how high are
his values of the acti^, the real, the true.

$ 4. AT THE CSKIS

But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the
Ups of the child? First, as already suggested,
do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to
the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make

J b, Google

346 Rxuoious Education m ihe FiUOLy

too heavy moral demaads. Remembex the instinct
to protect himself from immediate punishmoit or
disi^jprobation is stronger than any other just th»i.
Do not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner
may not do, incriminate himself. We have no
right to put on our children tests harder than they
can bear. Often we put those which are harder
than we could face. What you will do just then
dqwnds on what you have been d(Hng for the
training of the child or youth. Do not expect
him to solve problems in moral geometry if you
have neglected simple additicoi in that realm.

Punishment by the blow or the immediate
sentence will be futile. The offender must know
he has treqtassed in a realm beyond your admin-
istration and rule; he has done more than commit
an offense against you. Whatever consequences
follow — such as your hesitation to accept his word
— must evident^ be a part of the operation of the
entire moral law. He^ him to see that lying
strikes at the root of all social relations and would
make all happy and pro^rous living, all friend-
ship, and all business impossible by destrc^ring
sodal confidence.

Facing the crisis, do not demand more than
your training gives you a right to expect. Often,
instead of the direct categorical question as to
guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of
the events in question; we must patiently help

J b, Google

Dealing with Mobax Crises 247

the child to state tlie facts and to see the values of
exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we
must bring the events into the li^t of larger areas
of time and circles of life, help him to see them
related to all his life and to all mankind and to the
very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal.
That cannot be done in a moment; it is part of a
habit of our own minds or it is not really done at
all. At the moment we can, however, make the
deepest impression by insistence on the importance
of the actual, the real, the exactly true.

I. Retesences tor Study
E. L. Cabot, Eaery Day Elkics, cbaps. zix, xz. Holt,

W. B. Forbiuh, On Truth Tdlmg. Pamphlet. American

Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.
J. Sully, CkUdrm's Ways, pp. 134-33. Ai^teton, |i . 35.

H. FCIXHER RzADmo
G. S. Hall, "A Study of ChOdien's Lies," Bducaiumat

Problems, I, chap. vi. Appleton, $3.50.
E. P. St. John, A Genetic Study of Veracity. Pamphlet
J. Sully, Studies in Childhood.
E. H. Griggs, Moral Education. Huebscb, I1.60.

m. Topics ros Discussion
I. Are there degrees of lying ?
a. When is a lie not a lie 7

3. How can we discriminate among the statements of
cbildien?

J b, Google

248 Rzuoions Edvcahon in ihe FAiOLy

4. How GUI we he^ them to lecogaie the qualities of
tnith?

5. InwiutwKyBBrepuentstoblameforfaidngcIiildTen
to ptotecthne Ijnng?

t. What of the reUtion of the thou^t of God to the
dcnuDdi for tiuth ?

7. WouU you puniah & child for lyiat and, if so, in what
way?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XXn

DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (Cmctvded)

§ I. DISaOKESTY

Many parents appear to think that the child's
concepts of property rights and of fair dealing are
without importance. Habits of pilfering are per-
mitted to develop and success in cheating wins
admirarion. Low standards are accepted and
religion is divorced from moral questions. The
family attitude practically assumes that all persons
cheat more or less and that it is necessary only to
use wisdom to insure freedom from conviction.

Responsibility lies at home. We shall never
have an honest generation until we have honest
men and women to breed and train it. It is folly
to think we can lay on the public schools the burden
of the moral education of the yoimg. Much is
already being attempted there; yet little seems to
be accomplished because the home, having the
chUd before and after school and for a longer
period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in .
habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral woifc
of the school. If parents assume that one cannot
succeed with absolute integrity, that dishonesty
in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then
children will learn that lesson despite all that may

Uigniedb, Google

950 RXUCZODS EOVCATION IN TOB FAKILy

besaiddsewhere. Honest chfldien grow where, in
answer to the false statement, "You will starve
if you do bufflness honestly," parents say, "Then
we will starve."

But the veiy home life itself can be a teacher of
dishiHiesty. Is it lai{[ely a matter of sham and
pretense for the sake of social gjcffy? Does it
[»ef er a cheiq> veneer to a slowly acquired genuine
aitide ? Is the fnnit a{H>earance that of a daady
while the backyard loc^ like a slattern ? Is the
home striving for more than it deserves? Is it
trying to get more out of life than it puts in?
Evading taxes, avoiding duties, a community
parasite, does it commend to children the arts of
Bodal cheating and ^^ ? Such homes teach so
loudly that no voice could be heard in them.

Given tlie atmo^here, ideals, and practices of
the bcmest life in the home itself, the problems of
conduct, in the realm of these rights, are more than
half solved. Here in the home the real training
for the life of business takes place. Not for an
instant can we afford to lower standards here, nor
to lose aght of the life-long power of our ideab,
our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the
n^ generation. Do parents know that the prob-
lems of lying, cheating, quarreling ore the great,
vital questions for their children, much more
important than industrial or professional success
in life; that on these all success is predicated? If

J b, Google

Dealing with Mokal Ckises 251

tliey do, suiety they cannot regard the problems
which arise as mere incidents ; surety they will pro-
vide for the culture of the moral life as definitely
as for the culture of the physical or the intellectual I

$ 3. LESSONS m HONESTY

But chfldren also acquire habits from th e ir play-
mates. Whenever the act of pilfering appears, the
wrong must be made clear. Some sense of property
i^ts is necessary; not the right, as some assume,
to do what you will with a thhig because you have
it, but the right to enjc^ and usefully employ it.
He^ children to see the difference between mine
and thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes
&om too great freedom in forgetful borrowing
within the family. In this little social group the
members must first acquire the habits of respect
for the rights of others. Through toys, tools, and
IxK^ the lesson may be learned so early that it
becomes a part of the normal order of things.

Children can learn that the game of life has its
rules and that the breach of these iiiles spcdls the
game and prevents our own happiness. They
can learn, too, that these are not arbitrary rules;
they are like the laws of nature; th^arethecondi-
titms under which alone it is possible for people to
live together and to make life worth while. Gam-
bling is wrong because it is unsocial; it is the
attempt to gain without an equivalent giving.

J b, Google

as2 Rsuoions Education in the Fahily

CheatiDg is wioog, do matter how many practice
it, just as surely as cheating is wrong in the game
on the playground.

Children are really peculiarly sensitive to t^
social amsdousness. In sdiool under no drcom-
stances will they do that which the school custtmi
forbids or the older boys condemn. Li the home,
de^te contrary appearances, the opinion of
elders, bcotheis, sisters, and parents is the recog-
nized law. Every small boy wants to be like his
big brother. Children's conduct may be guided
by an understanding erf the social will outside the
school and home. Help them to know that all
people everywhere in organized society condemn
cheating and dishonesty.'

Sentiment and emotional feeling must back
up all teaching of conduct. Your stories and
readings should be selected with this in mind.
The ^>probation of parents and id the great
Father of all enters as an effectual motive.

But parents seldom understand these prob-
lems; they attempt to deal with each one as it
arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless
processitm ^nd abandon the task. Their endeav-
ors are based on faint memories of such problems
in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb proverbial

' Pareuti will be helped by the practical discussions of cheat-
ing, cribbing, ukI othw boy proUenu in Johnaon, PrMewu if
StylMd.

.b, Google

Dealing with Moeal Cbises 353

philosophy about morals and cMldrea. Does not
the developnait of moral ability and culture
deserve at least as much attention as any other
phase of the child's life? After all, what do we
most of all de^re for all our children — position,
fame, ease ? or is it not rather simply this, that,
no matter what else they do, they may be good
and useful men and women? Then what are we
doing to make them good and useful ?

A deal view of the need for moral training, a
belief that is possible, will surely lead to serious
attempts to learn the art of moral training. In
this they need not be without guidance. There is
a number of good books on character develojmient
in the child.' The foundation for all such train-
ing of parents ought to be laid in an understand-
ing of what the moral nature is, and then of the
laws of its development. Later the specific prob-
lems may be separately con^dered.

. § 3. TEASING AND BULLYING

Teasing is the child's crude method of experi-
mentation in psychological reactions; the teaser
desires to discover jast how the teased will respond.
It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless
infliction of pain in sheer enjoyment of another's
misery, and then into brutal bullying. When only
two children are together mere teasing wiU not

'See "Book List" in Appendix.

J b, Google

354 Reliqious Education m the Faiuly

last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or
bis teasing will turn to that lowest of all brutalities,
delight in inflictiiig pain on weaker ones.

But teasing is a serious problem in many fami-
lies; the whole groi^ sometimes lives in an at-
mo^here of ridicule, derision, and annoyance.
Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a
group is gathered, for the guilty ones are under the
stimulus of the praise of others; they inflict mental
pain for the sake of winning approbation.

Teasing has a pedagogical bam. A certain
amount of ridicule acts healthfully on most persons.
"Evea children need sometimes to see their weak-
nesses, and eq>ecialfy their faults of temper, in the
li^t of other eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous.
But children are seldom to be trusted to disdpUue
one another; freedom to do so is likely to deveb^
hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others,
and arrogance from the sense of lordship. The
corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is a kindly
e^ressicm of the sense of humor. The ability
to see and to show just how foolish or funny some
Mtuations are will turn many a tragedy of child-
hood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh
at the distresses or faults of others, help them to
laugh at their own. Cultivate the habit of seeing
the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side of things.
A sotmd sense of kindly humor often will save us
all from unkind tea^ng.

.b, Google

Dealing with Moeal Cbises 355

§ 4. soue cuses poa teasing
Ifelp the habitual and unkind teaser to see how
cowardly the act is, to see how it is against the
^irit of fair play. Call on him to help the weaker
one. If he is tea^g for some fault of temper or
some habit, show him the chance that is afforded
to do the nobler deed of helping another to over-
come that fault.

Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequ^ces
of his own act; he must bear the burden of the
critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing him
for his own ^ortcomings will sometimes cure him,
but usually he loses his temper quickfy. Make him
feel the injustice of the teaser's method. If he is a
bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal puoish-
ment is wise it is in such a case. He who mflicts
pain ^n^ly because he can deserves to endure
pain infected by someone stronger. But one must
be careful not to confirm him in the coward's code.
The injustice of it he must see, see by smarting
under it. If ever punishment before others is wise
it is in this case; for surely he who delights in
htmuliating others must be humiliated. But
though justice suggests this course, ejqwrience
shows that it does not always work; the bully only
bides his time, and, cherishing resentment, he
wreaks it on the wealcer ones.

The best cure for brutal teasing will take a l(mger
time than is involved in a thrashing. Besides,

J b, Google

as6 Rxuoious Educahqn in ihe Family

the teaser will get his thiadungs very soon from
other boys. It requires time to change the habits
that make bullying posable. Try gradually he^
ing him to see the beauty and pleasure of helpful-
ness. Give him a chance to ^ve pleasure instead
of pain. He^ him to taste the joy of praise, the
praise that he^)S more than all teasing criticism.
He^ him to see that it is more truly a mark of
superiority to he^, to cheer, to do good, than to
oppress and tease. Take time to habituate him
in helpfulness.

In dealing with teaang in the family, two other
things are worth remembering: First, the teased
must be taught the protective power of indifference.
Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound;
the fun ends there. Lau£^ at those who laugh
at you, and they will soon cease. Secondly, the
atmosphere and habit of the family determine the
course of teasing. Where carping criticism and
unkindly ridicule abound, children cannot be
blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor
lightens tense situations, where we sacrifice the
pleasure of stinging criticism for the sake of
encouraging those who most need it, children are
quick to catch those habits too. The teasing
child usually comes out of a family of 5*11 ilfl'*
habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing
others, our first thought ought to be as to the
extent to which we may have been their ezan^e

J b, Google

Dealing with Moral Crises 357

in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our
part against the temptations to tease will have
an effect far more potent than all attempts to
talk them out of the habit; it will lead them out

I. Referxnces tos Stcdy

I. HONESTY

P. Dn Bois, The Culture of Justin, chaps, iii, x. Dodd,

Mead &Co., |o. 75.
E. P. St. John, C/tild Nature and CftHd Nurture, cbsp. viiL

Pilgrim Press, $o, 50.

W. L. Sheldon, A Study oj Habits, chap. zvii. Welch & Co.,
Chicago, |i. 35.

n. Fdrthek Readino

ON GENERAL UOKAL TXAIHtHO

Sneath & Hodges, Moral Training in School and Home.

Macmillan, to. 80.
E. O. Sisson, The Essentials of Character. Macmillan,

$1.00.

H. ThisletxHi Mark, The Unfolding of Personality. The

Univeraty of Chicago Press, ti . 00.
Paul Carus, Our Children. Open Court Publishing Co.,

ti.oo.

m. Topics tOR Discission
I. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession ?
3. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of
property rights ?

J b, Google

3S8 RxuGious Education m ise Family

3. How do bonus tnin in disbooeaty ?

4. Wlutb the rdatioB between cheating and dishonesty?

5. What is a child acting to do when he teases another?

6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing?

7. What b the relation of teasing to bullying?

8. MThat cura would you suggest for eitlua: ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XXm

THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN REUGIOUS
EDUCATION

Whoever will stop to review his early educatioiia]
experience will be iii:q)ressed with the instantaneous
and vivid nuumer in which certain teachers spnag
into memory. They ate seen as though actually
living again. We have difficultyin recalling even the
subjects they taught, while of the particulars of their
teaching we have absolutely no recollection. But
they continue to influence us; they are like so many
silent forces leading our lives to this day. The
teacher is always greater than his lesson, and what
he is, is greater than what he says. The religious
education of the young depends more on the gift of
persons,on contact with lives, than on anything else.

There are instructors and there are teachers;
the former impart information, the latter convey
personality; the former deal with subjects, the latter
teach people. The greatest factor in education as a
process of developing persons is the power of stimu-
lating personality. The power of the family as an
educational agency is in the fact that it is an
organization of persons for personal purposes.
When you take the persons away you remove all
educational potencies.

J b, Google

26o RzuGious Education dj the Faiolif

The depetsonaUzed home is the modem menace.
We have come to think, that provided you throw
fumituie and food together in proper proporticms
you can produce a capable life. So we depend
on the home as a piece of machinery to do its
work automatical^, forgetting that the working
activity is not the home but the family, not the
furniture but peqik. Life can only come from
life, and lives can only come from lives. Personal-
ity alone can develqi personality. By so much as
you rob the family life of your personal presence,
as mother or as father, you take away from its
reality as a family, from its force as an educational
agency, fnnn its religious reality.

§ I. OKFHANED f AUHIES

All that is said here about fathers might well be
applied to mothers, save that they are not as
flagrant sinners in this respect, and, besides, it
conies with better grace for a father to speak on the
sins of fathers.

There are too many fathers who are finandai
and physiolo^cal fathers only. A good father
easily grows as crooked as a dollar sign when he
is nurtured only on money. Many, both fathers
and mothers, take parenthood wholly in physio-
logical terms, imagining — ^if they think about it at
all — that they have fully discharged all possible
obligations if only they know how to bear, feed,

J b, Google

The Pessonal Factobs 361

and clothe children properly. True, such duties
are fundamental, but no father can be rightly
called "a good proyider" who provides only things
for his family, no matter with what generosity he
provides these things. Our homes need more
of ourselves first of all.

He makes a capital error of setting first things
in secondary places who willingly permits business
to "interfere with the pleasure of being with his
children. Our sodal order fi^ts its own welfare
as long as any father is chained to the wheels of
industry through the hours that belong to his
home. But there are just as many who are not
chained, but who enslave themselves to business,
and so miss the largest and best business in the
world, the development of children's characters.

Many a good father goes ^rong here. Lrove and
ambition prompt him to provide abundantly for
his children; he enslaves himself to give them
those social advantages which he missed in
youth.

But it is a short-measure love that ^ves only
gifts and never gives itself. The heart hungers,
not for what you have in your hand, but for what
you are. "The gift without the giver is bare."
No amount of bountiful providing can atone for
the loss of the father's personality. It is easy
for the hands to be so engrossed in providing that
the home is left headless and soon heartless. If

J b, Google

263 Reugious Education in the Famhy

we at all desire the fruits of character in tlie home
we must give ourselves personalty.

It is not alone the habitu£ of the saloon or the
idler in clubs and fraternities who is guilty ot
stealing from the home its rightful share of his
presence, ^e who gives so much of himself to
any object as not to give the best of himself to his
family comes under the apostolic ban of being
worse than an infidel. A father bdongs to his home
more than he bdongs to his church. There have
been men, tbouj^ probably their number is not
l^icm, who have allowed church duties, meetings,
and obligations so to absorb their time and energy
that they have given only a worn-out, bumednjut,
and useless fragment of themselves to their chil-
dren. Some have found it more attractive to
talk of the heavenly home in prayer-meeting or
to be gracious to the stranger and to win the smile
of the neighbor at the church than to take up the
by-no-means-easy task of being godly, sympathetic
and cheerful, courteous and kind among their
children and in their homes. No matter what it
may be, church or club, politics or reform organiza-
tion, we are working at the wrong end if we are
allowing them to take precedence of the home.

S 3. THE father's CHANCE

The father owes it to his family to give himself
at his best, that is, as far as possible, when his

J b, Google

The Personal Factors 263

vitality is freshest and his powers keenest to answer
to the young life about him. He owes it to his
family to conserve for it the time to think of its
needs, time to listen to the wife's story of its
problems, time to sit and sympathize with children,
time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to
play with them. Have you ever noticed this
great difference between the father and the mother,
that while the latter always has time to bind up
cut fingers and to hear to its end the story of what
the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, did and said,
somehow father's ear seems deaf to such stories
and he is often too busy to sympathize P It might
work a vast diange in some families if the "chil-
dren's hour" had a call to the father as wdl as to
the mother. Of course we are crowded with social
engagements and life is at high pressure under the
enticing obligation of uplifting and reforming every-
body else, yet one hour of every evening held sacred
for the firelight conversation, one in which the chil-
dren could really get at our hearts, might be worth
more to tomorrow than all our public propaganda.
Fathers owe their brains as well as their hands
to their families. Competent and efficient father-
hood does not come by accident. We are learning
that children cannot be understood merely by
loving them, that two things must be held in
balance: the scientific and the sympathetic study
of childhood. Is there any good reason why, while

J b, Google

364 Religious Education in the Family

so readily granting that motlms should bdong to
mothers' clubs, study child psychology, the hygiene
of infancy, domestic science, and eugenics, we
should assume that fathers may safely diqiense
with aU such knowledge? There are men irtio
^t up nights studying how to grow the biggest
radishes in the block, there are men who toil
through technical handbooks on the game of golf,
who would look at you in open-eyed wonder if
you should suggest the duty of studying their
diildren with equal scientific patience. They of
course desire to have ideal children but they are
not willing to leam how to grow them.

§ 3. 7ATHESING AS A MAN'S TASK

It takes intelligence and bums up brain power
to keep the confidence of your boy so that he wiU
freely talk of his own life and needs to you. Those
much-to-be-desired <^n doors are kept open, not
by accident, nor by our sentiments <»: wishes alone.
A boy changes so fast that a man has to be alert,
fhinlfing and trying to understand and sympathize
all the time. The boy sees through all sleepy
pretenses of understanding. We keep the (^>en
door of confidence only as by steady endeavor we
keep in real touch with the boy's world.

Fathers are ignorant of the problems of family
training; they oscillate between the wishy-washy
sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home

J b, Google

The Personal Factors 265

and the harsh, Hnftiinting despotism that breeds
hatred and rebellion. Fathers criticize the public
schools but never take the time to go and look
inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because
they are too lazy to make a like investment in the
patient study of some of thdr problems. They
affect indifference to the parent-teacher clubs while
remaining ^orant of the significant things they
have already accomplished for the schools. If
we were to make an inventory of what the women,
the mothers, have accomplished by study, agita-
tion, and legislation for social, dvic, ethical, and
religious bettennent, we proud lords of creation
would, or ought to, hang our heads in shame.

Fatherhood is our chance to become. It is our
chance to grow into our finest selves. The measure
of its gains to us dq>ends upon the measure of
our gifts to its opportunities and duties. It is our
chance to be what we should like our children to be,
oui chance to find ourselves. All that it costs, all
the self-denial, labor, and often pain it must mean,
is just the process of developing a fine, rich life.
Now, that Iffe is just the greatest gift that any man
can make to his home and his world. We can
never give any more than ourselves or any other
than ourselves, and this pathway of sacrifice, this
costly way of home-making, is a man's chance to
become GodUke. The race has come upward in
this way. It needs the masculine in its ideal self

J b, Google

366 Relkhohs Education in the Fault

as well as the fenunine. There is no race salvation
wiUiout constant individual self-giving. That
seU-giving must be balanced equally on the part
of the man and the woman. Fatherhood, like
motheihood, is just our chance to leam life's best
lesson, that there is a certain short path to happi-
ness which men have called the way of pain and
God calls the way of peace.

Motherhood is a sacred portion, but so is father-
hood. Its calls are just as high, its service just
as holy, its opportimities just as large, its meaning
just as divine. How worse than empty are all
our pratings about divine fatherhood if we illus-
trate its meaning only degradingly or misleadingly !
And just as the life of the spirit is the gift of that
divine fatherhood, so fot us the gift of our lives,
ourselves, is the largest and richest contribution we
can make to the religious lives of our children.

The father as a teacher teaches by what he is.
The classes in the home have no set lessons, for
the text is written in lives and the word is spoken
and tau^t in personality. You effect the religious
education of your children in the degree that you
give yourself as a simple religious person to them.

I. RXFERENCES TOK StUDV

Hodgea, Training of Children in Religion, chap. viL Apple-
ton, $1 . so.

K. G. Busby, Borne Life in America, chaps, i, it Macmil-
laa, ta.oo.

J b, Google

The Personal Factor 267

II. FDKTHER RfADINO

E. A. Abbott, 0» the Tratning of Parous. Houghton

MifSinCo., $1.00.
Ailea, Making the Most of Our Children, a vols. McChirg,

|i. 00 each.
Vf^a, The CuUwe of ReUgton, chap. iL Pilgrim PreSB,
$0.75.

m. Topics for Discdssion
J. Which do you remember best, your teachers or your
lesscms? Why?

3. Describe, from your memory, some of the influeoces
of personality ?

3. Are these influences greater or less with parents on
chOdieii?

4. What are the causes that separate parents and chil-
dren?

5. How shall ve define duties to business, to society, and
to the family ?

6. Under what circumstances is one justified in refusing
time to the church for the sake of the family ?

7. What are the best times and opportunities for the
strengthening of the personal bonds between childicD aod
parents?

8. How shall we overcome the i^iparent difficult of
mnintftinitig the Confidence of children ?

J b, Google

CHAPTER XXIV

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Whether we can remedy the ills of family livmg
today or not, we can determine the character of the
family life of the future. The homes of tomorrow
are being determined today. The children who
swing their feet in schoolrooms and play in our
gardens will control family living very soon. We
can do little to reconstruct the old order; we can
do everything to determine the new. When the
mountain sides have been made bare, forest con-
servation cannot save the old trees, but it can
prepare for new growths. Ours is the larger
opportunity because we can determine the ideals
of our children. Today we can determine that
thqr shall not suffer from false conceptions, shall
not bruise themselves in the blind ignorance that
compelled us to find our own way. We shall see
that, first, in the education of oui children we can
save the homes of tomorrow by training the chil-
dren of today to set first things first. If family
life has been neglected in America, it has been
because we have submerged its real values of
character and affection in a flood of things, of
materialism.

J b, Google

Loosing to the Fittuse 369

5 i. a constbdcnve poucy tor character
The future higher efficiency of the family de- |
pends on an extension of a conscience for character
through all our thinking on the family. We are
really half-ashamed to talk of character. We
blush for ideals but we have no shame in boasting
of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of I
the things of beauty and we love only the useful. /
So we have become ashamed of the ideals of the
home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in the
popular attitude of indifference or derisitm, but
we voice it ourselves. We jcun in the jest at
marriage; we joke over marital infelicities. We
would be ashamed to be caught singing "Home,
Sweet Home." What is more important, we show
that, as a people, we have less and less the habit
of regarding the home as any other than a commer-
cial affair. The tendency is to determine domestic '
living wholly by economic factors. The literature
on the "home" is overwhelmingly economic; its
heart is in the kitchen. High efficiency on the
physiological, sanitary, culinary, and mechanical
sides makes the modem home so convenient that
you can lie on a folding bed, press a button to f
light the grate fire, turn on the lights, start the
toaster, and wake the children. Homes are places^
to hide in at night, to feed the body, arrange the
clothes, and start out from for real living. They
are private hotels.

J b, Google

370 Religious Edxtcation m tee FAiaiy

If we would save the family we must save the
child from losing ^ht of the primacy of human
values; we must strengthen bis natural faith that
people are worth more than all besides, leading him
mto the faith that moral integrity, truth, honor,
righteousness, are the glory of a life. More, these
youQg lives must be trained to habitual and
efficient right-doing. In a word, the conservatitm
of the home is simply a program of beginning today
ourselves to set first things first, to conserve the
human factors that will make homes, to make
education everywhere in school and church and
home count first of all for character. And that
broader education we ourselves must test first
of all by this, whether it makes youth competent
to live aright, cultivates the love of worthy ideals,
and makes him willing and able to pay the price
of a trained life consecrated to the service of his
world, to the love of bts fellows, and to the making
of a new world.

We shall need, first, to safeguard the primary
motives that enter into the founding of famifies.
Hiose motives begin to develop early. They are
in the making in childhood. Somehow we must
plan the education of youths so that they will
think of homes and of marriage in new terms.
Possibty the public school will not only teach the
physiology of marriage and the bare physical facts
of sexual purity, but will teach new ideals of family '

J b, Google

Looking to the Futdee 371

life; it will count it at least as much a duty to
cultivate a love of home as it is to cultivate a love
of country. It can set so clearly the final objec-
tive of character that even children shall see that
life has higher ends than money-making and the
family greater purposes than garish social display.

§ 3. TEE CHUKCH AIDING

Certainly the chiurch must seek to quicken and
develop new ideals of family life; it must hting
religion to our hearths and homes; it must worry
less about a "home over there," and show how
truly heavenly homes may be made here. It must
not only get youth ready to die, it must prepare
them to live; to live together on religious terms.
It will do this, not only by general discussions in
the pulpit, but by special instruction in classes.
No church has a clear conscience in regard to any
young person contemplating the duties of a family
whom it has not directly instructed in the duties
of that life.

It is a strange spectacle, if we would stop long
enough to look at it, of the church proclaiming a
way of life but scarcely ever teaching it. In any
diurch there is a large number of yoim'g people
under instruction; what are they learning ?
Usually a theological interpretation of an ancient
religious literature. Some stUl are learning to
hate. all other persons whose religion differs from

J b, Google

373 Religious Education m tee Fauily

the brand carried in that institutioa. In a few
years these youths vill be beaiiog sodal burdens,
facing temptaticHis, taking up duties; does their
teaching relate at all to these things ? No, indeed,
that would be "woridly"; it would seem to be
sacril^ous to teach them how actually to be
religious, llie business of the church school is
still largely th&t of filling minds with theological
data rather than training young, trainable lives
to become religious schoolboys, religious voters,
religious parents. How many have been at all
influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they
stepped into a polling-booth, when they chose a
life-mate, when they guided or disciplined their
childroi? If religious education does not at all
influence us in the great events of life, of what value
is it to us 7 Must it not be counted a sheer waste
of time?

If we would conserve the human values of the
family we must train youth to a re%iou3 interpre-
tation of the home. If we cannot do that in the
church we might as well confess that the church
cannot touch the sources of hiunan affairs.

§ 3. IDEALS AND UETHODS

No matter what the breadth of the interests
of the public school, youth will still need training
for family living given under religious auspices
and with the religious aim. The day school may

J b, Google

Looking xo the Futdke 973

give couises in domestic economy, but family
living demands more than ability to sweep a room
or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent
to meet its higher demands unless at least two
things are accomplished, first, that he, or .she,
is led to see the family as essentially a religious,
spiritual institution because it is an association of
persons for the purpose of developing other persons
to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or she, is
moved to willii^ness to count the work of the
family, its purpose and aim, as the highest in life
and that for which one is willing to pay any price
of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor.

This means that the fundamental need is that
our young people shall grow up with a new vision
and a new passion for the home and family.
That passion is needed to give value to any training
in the economics or mechanics of the home; and
that traioiog is precisely the contribution which
the chiurch should make to all departments of life
today. It is the pr(^het, the interpreter, revealing
the ^uitual meanings of all daily affairs and
quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed
passion for worthy ideals.

From the general teaching, the high message of
the church, directed to this special problem, there
must be formed in the mind of the coming genera-
tion a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its
life, a new evaluation of its worth. That can come

J b, Google

374 Religious Education in xse Faioly

in part by the prophetic message from the pulpit,
but it will come more naturally and readily by
tegular teaching directed to the actual experiences
and the coming needs of the young people who are
to be home-makers. The soaring ideals pass over
their heads, but when you teach the practice, the
details of the life of the family in the spirit of these
ideals, as interpreted and determined by the higher
conception, then they catch the vision through the
details.

We need two fypes of classes in church schools
in rdation to the life of the family: First, classes
for young people in which their social duties as
religious persons are carefully taught and dis-
cussed. Perhaps such courses should not be
specifically on "The Family," but this institution
ought, in the course, to occupy a place propor-
tionate to that which belongs to it in life. The
instruction should be specific and detailed, not
simply a series of homilies on "The Christian
Family," "Love of Home," etc., but taking up
the great problems of the economic place of the
family today, its spiritual function, questions of
choice of life-partners, types of dwelling, finances
and money relations in the family, children and
their training, and the actual duties and problems
which arise in family living.

AH topics should be treated from the dominant
viewpoint of the family as a religious institution

J b, Google

Looking to the Futuke ajs

for the development of the lives of religious
persons. The courses should be so arranged as
to be given to young people of about twenty
years of age, or of twenty to twenty-five. They
should be among the etectives offered in the
church school.

He second type of class would be for those
who are already parents and who desire help on
their special problems. Many schools now con-
duct such classes, meeting either on Sunday or
during the week.' Work on "Parents' Problems,"
"Family Religious Education," and similar topics
is also being given in the dty institutes for religious
workers. No church can be satisfied with its
service to the community unless it provides oppor-
tunity for parents to study their work of character
development through the family and to secure
greater efficiency therein. Such classes need only
three conditions: a clear understanding of the
purpose of meeting the actual problems of religious
training in the family, a leader or instructor who
is really qualified to lead and to instruct in this
subject, and an invitation to parents to avail
themselves of this opportunity.

> PBiiq>Mets OD pUni for puents' dassegi Th» Borne and tht
SvMday School, Pilgrim Press; Plans for Uetkers' and Parenti'
Matmgs, Sunday Sduxd limes Co.; Bow to Slarl a itgOer^
Department, David C. CooIl Co.; The Parent)' Department of Iha
Sunday School, Connecticut Sunday Sdtocd Assodatjon, Hut-
ford, Conn.

J b, Google

276 Rmciotrs Educahon in ihe Family

Tlie value of such a class would be greatly
enhanced il it should be held in close co-ordination
with amilar classes or clubs conducted by the pub-
lic schools.* Here all the parents of the community
meet in the school building, not to discuss how the
teachers may satisfy parental criticism, but to
learn what the school has to teach on modem
educatiiKial methods apphed to the life of the child,
eq>ecially in the famify, and mutually to ^d ways
of co<^>eTation between the home and the sdiool
for the betterment of the child.

I. RxfSRENCES roK Stddy
Articles in Sdigiout Edvcattom, April, 191 1, VI, 1-77.
Helen C. Putnam in Sdigiims Edttcation, June, 1911, VI,

159-66.
GeoT|e W. Dawson in RtUgious Educatiott, June, 1911,

VI, 167-74.
Ciibot, Vohmker Hdp *n Ike Sckoeh, chop, vil HoughUm

Mifflin Co., I0.60.

n. FOXTHEK ReADINO

Foisyth, Marriage, Its Ethics and ReHgion. Hoddct &
Stoughton, $1 . 35.

Lanjoy, Self-Traimng for Motherhood. American Uni-
tarian Association, ti.oo.

Fomeioy, Ethics of Marriage. Fimk & Wagnalls, $1 . 50.

■See pamphlet published by the National Congress of
Motlieis: Hojb to Organite Paretiis' AssodaUont and Mothers'
Circlet in Public Schools.

J b, Google

LOOKINO TO THE FUTDSE 277

ni. Topics ros Discdssion
I. In how far are home problems due to the ignorance

of parents?

3. What do you regard as the essentials in the trainiog

of parents?

3. Where can the necessary subjects best be taught ?

4. What are the difficulties in the way of teaching these
subjects to young people ?

$. In how far can we direct the reading of young peofde
toward sane and helpful knowledge of family life and duties ?

J b, Google

Uigniedb, Google

APPENDIXES

J b, Google

J b, Google

APPENDIX I

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK.

This book is designed for individual reading or
for use in classes. It is not a textbook of tbe same
character as a textbook in mathematics or history,
but the material is arranged so as to be both easily
readable and of ready analysis for classes. There
are two methods of following the course: one by
work conducted under a regular teacher in a class,
and the other by private or correspondence study.

§ I. THE CLASS

The class should be ccnnposed of parents and
other adults, inasmuch as the work is designed for
them. It may be a class in connection with the
Sunday school in a church, a class conducted by
a mothers' club or congress or by a parettt-teacher
association, or it may be oi^anized under other
auspices. Or it might be organized by a group
of parents in any community. The class need not
consist of either fathers or mothers alone, as the
work is planned for both. In any case the work
of teaching will be facilitated if, in addition to the
customary officers of the class, the teacher will
appoint a librarian, whose duties would be to
ascertain for the members of the class where the

J b, Google

983 Reugiods Education in tee Fauuy

books for study and for reference may be obtained,
that b, whether they are in the public library,
church library, or in private collections, and also,
whenever it is desired to purchase books, where
they may best be secured.

$ 3. THE TEACHES

The primary requisite for the teacher will be an
eagerness to learn, a sufficiently deep interest in the
subject to lead to thorough study. No one can teach
this class who already knows all about the sub-
ject. A spirit sympathetic with the child and the
life of the family and a mind willing to study the
subject will accomplish much more than fadle
rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher
will not often be "an easy talker" on the family;
class time is too precious to be occupied with a
lecture. While, naturallyj <me who is a parent
will speak with greater e^>erience than another,
the abihty to teach this subject cannot be limited
to fathers and mothers; physiological parenthood
is less important than spiritual parenthood. The
teacher must have, then, willingness' to study the
subject, abUity to teach as contrasted with mere
talking, sympathy with parenthood, and a passion
for the religious personal values iu life.

§ 3- GENERAL JIETHOD

The teacher's aim will be to make this course
definitely practical The book is not concerned

J b, Google

Suggestions fok Class Woee 283

so much with theories of the family as with the
present problems of the family, and especially with
those that relate to moral and religious education.
There must be a sense of definite problems to be
concretely treated in all lessons. The teacher will
therefore encourage discussion, but will also avoid
the tendency to drift into desultory conversation.
Direct the discusaon to avoid tedious detours on
side issues. Direct the discussion to avoid the
toidency to treat superficially all the subject at
one session. It will be necessary frequently to
insist that attention be focused upon the immedi-
, ate problems suggested by the lesson for the day,
and to ask the class to wait until the subjects
which they in their eagerness suggest shall come
in their due order.

Encourage personal experiences as delights
and criticisms on the text, but remember that no
single experience is conclusive. Beware of the
over-elaboration and detailed narration of e^>e-
riences.

Insist on a tkorougk study of the text. Students
should be so prepared as to make a lecture super-
fluous and to allow discussion to take the place of
review and e^lanation. The greatest danger in
parents' classes is that the members do not study;
class work becomes indefinite and soon loses value.
Again, the members of the class often are unwilling
to be governed by the schedule of lessons, and the

J b, Google

384 Religious Education m the Faioly

class drifts mto umless conversation. Adult
studoits eqiedally need to be turned from the
tendency to regard educational e^>erience as
having come to an end with their school days.
Hie members of this class will need encouragement;
they must be stimulated patiently until they have
re-formed some habits of study and rediscovered
the pleasures of systematic thinking. The best
stimulus will be a teacher so convinced of the
supreme inqwrtance of the subject to be studied
as to lead the members to recognize its importance
and the insignificance of any price they may pay
for efficient spiritual parenthood.

§4. CLASS WOSK

At the first session teadi chap, i, which is mtro-
ductory. Draw out discussion on the points sug-
gested therein, and as^gn this chapter and the one
following for the next session. The first lesson will
give the teadier o[^rtunity to explain and illustrate
the method of study, presentation, and discussion.

Assign the work carefully each week, calling
especial attention to the "References for Study."
Secure promises from as many as pos^ble to read
at least one of these references and to prepare a
written report, on one sheet of paper, for presen-
tation at the next session. Ask others to look into
the spedaJ points which will be foimd in the refer-
ences ^ven under the heading "Further Reading."

J b, Google

Suggestions fob Class Woke 285

In beginning a lesson it will be wise to caU
to mind first the principle running tlirough the
book, that the great work of the family is the
development of religious persons in the home;
then call to mind the application of this prin-
ciple in the last lesson. Make your review very
brief.

Next, brii^ out the leading topic of the lesson
for the day. This should be done so as to present
a vital issue and a live topic to the class. Very
often the best way of doing this is to state a con-
crete case involving the issue discussed. The pres-
entadon of a definite set of circumstances or a
fairly complete experience involving the funda-
mental principles under discussion is an instance
of teachii^ by the "case method." If the teacher
win consider how the law student is trained by the
study of particular cases, the advantage of the
method will be clear. Be sure that the "case"
selected will include the principles to be tau^t.
Prq)are the statement of the case beforehand.
This should be done in a very brief uarrarive, so
giving the instance as to enable the class to see the
reality of the question. Be sure that your instance
is itself vital and probable. A class of adults will
espedally need such points of vital contact. By
announcing the topic in advance the teacher will
often be able to obtain definite cases in point from
the members.

J b, Google

a86 Rkugious Education m the Fauly

^^th the case thus presented take the points in
the text and ap^ly them, first to the q>edal case
akme, but with the purpose of developing the
principles involved in that and amilar cases.
Bewaie of the ^>ecial danger of the case method,
namely, that the class may discuss the specific
instances rather than the principles.

TeaekiHg is more than telling; it is stimulating
other minds to see and con^rehend and state for
themselves. Therdore the teacher must first
comprehend and be able to state for himself.
Avoid repeating the phrases of the text. Get
them over into your own language and see that the
class does the same. Do not fail to call for the
brief reports on reading, and to make them a real
part of the subject of discussion.

Questioning is the natural method of stimulating
minds. Use the questiim method, but do not
confine yourself to "What does the author say on
this ?" Direct your questions to the points stated
and the issues raised so as to compel students to
think on the topics and so as to draw out the
results of their thinking. Form your own judg-
ments and help the class to form theirs too.
Remember that the purpose of the class is to get
people thinking on the great subjects discussed.
The text is not written in order that groups of
students may learn the author's statements, but
that they may be led to think seriously on all these

J b, Google

Suggestions for Class Woke 287

matters aod stimulated to do something about
them.

Use tJie "discussion topics" given at the end of
each lesson. They are not designed to furnish a
syllabus of the lesson, but to surest important
questions for discussion, some of which may barely
be mmtioned in the text. They may be used in
assigning the advance work, giving topics to differ-
ent students, and they may be used in yout review
of the previous lesson.

A syllabus of each lesson will be helpful, pro-
vided it be prepared by the students themselves.
Encourage the careful readii^ of the lesson by
every member of the class, letting the syllabus
grow out of this.

Notebooks win have their largest value if used
at home for two purposes: first, to set down the
student's analysis of the book as he reads, secondly,
to record the student's observations on definite
problems and on practice in the home. Note-
takuig in the class will have very little value unless
it is backed up by study at home.

Generalization. Have clearly in your own mind a
definite concept of the general prindple underlying
each section. Read through each section until you
can state the principle for yourself. Bring your
teaching into a focus at the point of that principle
, before the lesson ends. Try to get the members of
the class to state the principle in their own words.

J b, Google

aSS R£U(uous Education in tse Faioli

tn acHon: The principles will have little value
unless translated into practical methods; direct
your »«rhmg to their actual use in families. Your
generalization is for guidance into implication.
Urge that the plans described be actually tried.
E:q>ect this and call for reports on plans tested in
the daily experience of families. If a number of
students would try, for example, the plan of
worsh^ suggested for two or three weeks and
report their e^>eriences in writing, together with
the accounts of any other plans tried, a valu-
able budget of helpful knowledge could thus be
gathered.'

Conference flan: Some classes will be able to
meet twice a week, taking the lesson at one session
and at another ^>ending the time in conference.
At the conference period the program might pro-
vide for (i) brief papers by members of the class
on tc^ics personally assigned, (2) abstracts or
summaries of assigned readings, (3) discussion on
the particular points raised in the papers, and (4)
conference on unsettled questions itOBi the lesson
for the class period preceding.

■The teidicra aie especially invited to secure records of
•ctiul ezperimenta of this charactei. Accounts of tried methods
of fanuly worship, espcdidly those with new features, which
dtould be given in some detail as to the exact plan, the circum-
stances, the material used, and the results, should be sent to the
author in care of the publishers. Perhaps in this way material
irtiidi may be valuable to large numbers may be gathered.

J b, Google

Suggestions fos Class Woke 3S9

Club work: A parents' club might be organized,
either in a church or in connection with a school,
which would use this textbook, follow the study
woA with conferences, and would secure for its
own use a library of the books listed after each
chapter. Such a club would be able to put into
practice some of the plans advocated and could
encourage their application in groups of families.

J b, Google

APPENDIX n
A BOOKLIST

The following books would be found useful for
the woiUug libraiy of a class or club following the
study of this text or for a section of the church
libraiy <hi the home and family. The books
maAed with an asterisk are the ones which may be
regarded as of first practical value to parents and
others studying the development of character in the
life of the family.

In addition to the titles mentioned below, the
the references at the end of each chapter in this
book will furnish a list of other sources of valuable
materiaL

I. Tbx Insittction ot thz Fahilv
C. F. and C. B. Thwing, Th* Family. Lothrop, Lee &
Shepard, $i.6o. A historical survey of the family
with K q>edal study of its modem dangers and needs.
P. T. Forayth, Marriage, Its Ethics and Sdigion. Hodder
& Stoug^ton, $1.35. An important, popular state-
ment of the ethics of marriage as the foundation of
family life.
*W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and the Family. Hodder &
Stou^ton, Ja-So net. The most important recent
book on the family; traces its historical development,
the ethical ideals involved in the institution, and dis-
cusses its ptesent problems and perplexities.

J b, Google

A SooE List 391

Catherine G. Busby, Home Life in America. Macmillan,
ti.oo net. A popular statement of the outstanding
characteristicsof life in American homes; eotertaiiuDg
and iofonning.

*Clyde W. Votaw, Progress of Moral and Religious Education
in the American Home. Religious Education Asso-
ciation, (0.35. A caieful and comprehensive surrey,
of great value.

Charles A. L. Reed, Marriage and Genetics. Galton Press,
Cincinnati, Ohio, ti.oo. A surgeon's message on
eugenics, especially on the aspects indicated in the
title. A study of the laws of human breeding.

II, Child Natcke

*E. P. St. John, Child Nature and Child Nurture. Pilgrim
Press, $0. 50. A textbook dealing with the nature of
the child and with problems of his training in the home.

Irvmg Emg, The High School Age. Bdibs-Menill & Co.,
(i.oo net. A study of the nature and needs of boys
and girls in the first period of adolescence. Written
for all who are alive to the problems of this period as
well as for school people; gives constructive suggestions
for educational problems.

Elizabeth Harrison, A Study of the Child Nature. Chicago
Kindergarten College, ti.oo. Long recognized as a
standard for parents in the study of the development
and functions of the child-life.

George £. Dawson, The Right of the Child to Be Welt Bom.
Funk & Wagnalls, $0. 75. A plain study of eugenics,
non-technical and helpful; includes a duster on
eugenics and religion. To be commended to paients.

George E. Dawson, The Child and His ReUpott. The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, $0.75. The religious nature
and needs of the child with some suggestions as to
method.

J b, Google

2^2 Reugiovs Education in the Family

*W. After Wright, Tit Moral Condiiioiu amd DadopmaU
»/ iJu Child. Jennings & Grabain, 90.75. An izn-
[KMtant and vmlu&ble book on the newer views of the
religious develc^uaent of the child-life.

Frederick Tracy and J. StraiqiQ, The Psycholoey of ChOd-
hood. D. C. Heath & Co., $1.90. Gathers up the
gcnenl results in the field of child psychology.

*W. G. Eoons, The Child's Religious Life, Jomings 8c
Graham, ti.oo. Fiom the modem point of view,
dealing with some of the interesting problems of the
relation of the child to telijpous life and the develop-
ment of his religious ideas.

Thomas Stress, The Child and Relitum, Putnam,
$1.50. A series of short papers by English writers,
particularly on the question of child convetsion.

George A. Hubbell, Up through Childhood. Putnam, |i . 35.
A good geooid review with special reference to reli-
gioua problems and religious institutions.

Edith E. R. Mumford, The Dawn of CharacUr. Longmans,
Green & Co., %i.ao. A very important book, dealing
especially with the moral development of young
children.

m. Training in thx Hous
William B. Forbush (ed.). Guide Book to Childhood.
American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.
Very valuable as a guide to reading on the many
problems of child-training.
LeGrand Kerr, The Care and Training of the Child. Funk
& Wagnalls, $0.75. A good, general, brief study of the
nature of the child and the method of education.
William J. Shearer, The Management and Training of the
Child. Richardson, Smith & Co. A pcfiular and
practical statement of many problems and their treat-
ment in the home and school.

J b, Google

A Book Lisx 293

John Wirt Dinsmore, The Training of Chiidrm, Ameri-
can Book Co. While written for school-teachers, this
b one of the best studies which parents could possibly
read.

A. A. Bcrle, The School w Ike Home. Moffat, Yard & Co.,
$1.00. Contains much valuable suggestion to parents
who really desire to take advant^e of the educational
on>ortusities of the home.

John Locke, Bow to Train Up Year Ckitdren. Sampson,
Low, Marston & Co., London. Written over two
hundred years ago, and yet of very great value in
many parts to day,

*WiIliam B. Forbush, The Coining Generation. D. Appleton
& Co., $1 . 50. Discusses the various aspects of child-
training in the light of the social consciousness of today.
Many of the public agencies for child betterment are
carefully discussed.

"William A. McEeever, Training the Girl. MaiTnillan^
Ji.So-

* , Training the Boy. Macmillan, $i.5a These

two bo(^ constitute one of the best collectums of
material, most practical and helpful. They view girb
and boys as active factors and all the phases of home
and community life are studied with reference to their
needs.

IV. Special Reuoiocs TiuDnNG m the Houe
•George Hodges, The Training of the Child in Rftigum.
D. Ai^leton & Co., $r . 50. One of the few books deal-
ii^ in any modem manner with the special problems
of the reli^us lile of the family.
Rev. William Becker, Christian Education or The Duties
of Parents. B. Herder, St, Louis, ti. 00. Recent and
interesting sermons on the duties of parents in the

J b, Google

394 Reucious Edocation in the Family

religious cduc&tion of the Catholic child; a striking
example of messages that ou^t to be heard from every

Joba T. Faiis, Pkosant Sunday AJtemoom for the Children.
Sunday Sdxtol Times Co., $o.sa A number of
practical plans aie suggested.

*Geotge A. Coe, Bducatitm m R^gum and Morals. Flem-
mg H. Revell Co., I1.35. A book which all parents
ought to read for its valuable guidance on the general
princq)les of religious education.

Elizabeth Grinnell, Bitk John and I Brought Up the Ckiidrett.
American Sunday School Union, $0.70. A popular
statement in a sinqile form of methods of dealing with
many of the problems of religious training.

V. MOKAL TXAINIHG

Edward H. Griggs, Moral EducatioH. B. W. Huebsch,

$1.60. One of the best-known books on this question,

readable and helpful at many points.
Ennis Kichm<md, The Uind of the Child. Longmans,

Grem & Co., $1.00. One of the most helpful books

because of its new and refreshing point of view.
*Edwaid O. Sissou, The EssenHals of Character. Mac-

millan, $1.00. A book on the broad principles and

ideals; one dealing with the outstanding elements of

character.
Ernest H. Abbott, On the Training of Parents. Houghton

MifSinCo., $1.00. A bright statement of some of the

most petplexing prc^Iems of family life.
*Mary Wood-Allen, Uahing the Best of Our Children. First

and Second Series. A. C. McClurg & Co., ti . 00 each.

Takes one after another of the different situations in

child-training.

J b, Google

A Book List 295

^Patterson Dufiois, Th* Culture of Justice. Dodd, Mead
& Co., $0.75. An important contribution, as it calls
attention to some frequKitly neglected aspects of moial
training especially applicable to tbe home.

Walter L. Sheldon, DutUs in fke Home. W. M. Welch &
Co. A textbook, the thirty sections of which would
furnish an excellent basis for parents' discussions of
home discq>line.

VI. General Readino in the Hoke

John Macy, Ckiid's Guide to lUading. Baker & Taylor Co.,
$1.35. A discussion of leading and the education of
children thereby, with suggestions and criticisms of
suitable books in different departments of reading.

W. T. Taylor, Finger Posts U> CItiUren'i Reading. A. C.
McClurg & Co., Ii.oo. A practical discussion of
suitable reading for cliildien, with a list of books.

'G.Vl. Arnold, A Melhers'Lisiof Books forChUdren. A. C.
McClft'g & Co., $1.00. The books are arranged by
ages and topics, making this one of the most useful
collections available.

Edward P. St. John, Stories and Story Telling. Eaton &
Mains, to. 35. A textboc^ for parents' classes. It
contains much valuable material.

E. M. Partridge, Story TelUng in School and Home. Sturgis
& Walton, fi.35. One of the best discussions of the
princq>le3 and methods of story-tdling, with a number
of good stories.

J b, Google

.b, Google

Activity in relatiMi to diarac-

Anaiaaaeat of young people,

190
Anger, Dealing with, 314

Bibk, Hethods of using the,

Bible, The, in the home, T19
Blessing at table, 133
Book list on the family, 390
BcK^ and reacfing, 113
Boy, The, in the family, 173
Bojs' pUy, 17s
Bullying, 353

Character, A constructive

pidicy f6r, 369
Child nature, Books on, 191
Child unity with the chuich.

!, Relij^oui

307

Child welfai

lugs of, 3
Childhood diaracteristics, 53
ChristiaD family, The, as a

type, 4^
Chuich, The, and the childien,

M>4

Chuich, The, and the family,

198
Church, The, and the piogiam

of the home, 371
CitiWiDship, Training for, 96
Class work. Plans of, iSi
rnmmiimty, The, in relation to

the borne, SS
Commnnity sovicc, 91

Dishonesty, 149

EconoDiic development of the

home, 13
Educational function, The, of

the family, 46
Educational process, The, 49

FactMy system. The, and the

FanSy as an instituti(m. Books

en the, 390
"Family Book," 155
Fao^ defined, 5
FanSy ideal in the chmch, 103
I^unify life, Dominating m<^

tiveo(,37
Fanuly woiAip, 136
Family worship. Methods of,

133
Father, The, and the boy, 177
Fathei, The, and the family,

Fr ^ling ntttmp chUdien, 334

Function of the family, 46
Future of the family, 16S

Giri, The, in the family, 180
God, Tlie consciousness (rf, 64
Grace at table, 133

Hebrew family life, 39
HcMue and school co-opeiation,

313
Home, is it paa^ng? lO

J b, Google

998 RxuGious Education in the Fauly

flome, Rdigiou imctiacU'. Reading, Dcvdc^Hiig taste far.

tianaf, I
HcNue vef$ai ttmity, 18, at
Hooes^, Tniaing in, 149
Hymiu for duUren, 103

Jcsw' tfrtiing on the family.

loytlty aa the basic [aind[^

31.54
Loyal^, TIm otgantsatioi) of,

S7
Lying and the moial problem.

Rdi^ous duractei of the

family, 46
Rdigious development of the

child, 51
Religious education in the

family. Books on, 193
Religious education, Meaning

oil 47
Religious growth of thechlld,£5
Religious history of the family.

Ueals, ConveiMtioa at, 165
Mofal crises, Dealing with, 118
Metal life, leligious roots in Ibe

family, 31
Hoial teaching, 70
Uoral training, Boc^ on, 194
Motive, Religious, in the

family, a
Music tn the family, 105

Parental aversion, 1S6
Parenthood and religious train-

Paieata' classes, 174
Parents trained in schools, 214
Petulanqr in children, 133
Play activity, 107
Play, A policy «rf, 150
Play on Sunday, 149
Prayen, Children's, 13s
Prayers, Family, 137

Qoarreli of diildreD, 331
Questions, Children's, 69

School, The home as a, 87
Schools, Public, and the home,

Self-cootrd, Devdoiung, 337

336
Sodal life of youth, 1S9
Social quahtiea to be devdoped,

33

Sodal tnining, 39, 83, 93
Sodaliiadon of the hotne, t6
ScHig and story, loi
Spiritual values, Place of, 30
Stories and reading, no
Story-tdling, no
Sunday afternoon [Koblem, 1 54
Sunday in the home, 145
Sunday play, 149

Table, Ministry of the, 164
Table-talk, 169
Teasing and bullying, 353
Will, Training the, 331
Work and character, 76
Wcvship in the fainily, 136
Worship, Outlines of, 139
Youth in the home, 183

J b, Google

J b, Google

J b, Google

J b, Google

I>H

UU £.7|itJ

Dii-raM,, Google

J b, Google